The Second Day

It was half past six. Still dark, the moon had long since gone down. In the westernmost part of the ‘united’ European standard time zone – even this was seen as a minor invasion by Bretons – it only got light at seven o’clock at the beginning of May. Commissaire Georges Dupin was sitting in the Le Bulgare and drinking his second coffee, having just ordered his third from the energetic waitress. His little notebook lay open in front of him. Things were loud and robust. The day had long been in full, unsentimental flow, there was nothing leisurely here early in the morning. The far from idyllic cafe was right on the Route Nationale, on the fourth of the closely laid out rond-points on the approach to Quimper. From here, it was just five minutes to the little airport. Dupin did not come here often, but he was fond of it and it had been his saviour today.

As early as it was, Dupin had already got quite a lot done. He had got up at twenty past five – after only getting to bed at a little after half one and then lying awake practically all night, tossing and turning every few minutes. At one point he’d felt like he had a fever. He had gone over the events of the day again and again, the facts, the little that they knew. Might there not be clues that they hadn’t seen? A lead. He had been very sure that it would have been better to get some rest, to sleep. That it was completely preposterous to rack his brains in that state.

He would have got up even earlier if he had known how to get his hands on caffeine. The Amiral only opened at quarter to seven, which he had discussed very seriously with Girard on a number of occasions. Dupin’s disgracefully expensive espresso machine from Paris had suddenly given up the ghost, which he had only realised during the last emergency – because the Amiral was always closed on the second of January.

At a quarter to six, Dupin had called Riwal because he wanted the mayor of Fouesnant’s number. Dupin could not remember his exact thought processes now, but at some point in the night he had been determined to talk to him.

And then, finally, Dupin had indeed called the Prefect, at five past six. He would need to get in touch quite regularly from now on. Besides, he had realised that the Prefect himself was relevant to this case, although only peripherally: he had been friends with Konan. For the first five minutes, Dupin had let the usual tirade wash over him – why had he not got in touch the day before and then now suddenly did so in the middle of the night, that this was not a proper way to work … Dupin had not actuallylistened for a second. He had agreed, absolutely passively, to leave all press statements to the Prefect and especially to report at least three times a day on this ‘wholly exceptionally important case, which urgently required as quick a resolution as possible’. The Prefect had outlined all the potential ‘disastrous scenarios’ in store for Dupin, himself, the Finistère police, the whole département if they couldn’t manage a quick and complete resolution to the case. Dupin had waited for the choleric fury to subside and then begun to ask questions of his own. Always ‘in the interests of a quick resolution’. At first Locmariaquer had, with some astonishment – Dupin could not tell if it was genuine or not – asked to what it extent it was significant, what Konan’s businesses were and whether he had enemies. But then the Prefect noticeably relented, so that for some stretches the phone call had turned into a genuine investigative talk with a ‘witness’. In the end, Dupin left his superior thunderstruck with an overly friendly and formal ‘Thanks for your help’ and hung up. The Prefect had apparently felt more and more uneasy as the conversation went on. From a certain point onwards it had suited him to make it clear that Konan had not been a close personal friend in the strictest sense, but rather an ‘acquaintance – a significant figure in Brittany and beyond’, with whom he was on good terms for unavoidable professional as well as social reasons. Astonishingly, Dupin believed him. A few times the Prefect had even let a critical distance from Konan develop. He had mentioned that Konan had had ‘problems’ with the Inland Revenue from time to time and that his web of investments seemed a little unclear. He had known nothing about a specific, acute or simmering conflict with anyone in particular. He had seen Yannig Konan for the last time three weeks ago, at a party given by the ‘Friends of Breton Beer-brewers Club’, of which there were more and more in recent years – both regional beer producers and their friends. (Dupin himself was one of them now, although he would not admit it and was always making the case for his beloved 1664.) The Prefect was certain that Konan’s wife knew little about her husband’s current life. Up until a few years ago, the Locmariaquers had invited the Konans to dinner once a year. Until the marital crisis had become official. What the Prefect had also confirmed was this: Pajot really was a close friend of Konan. Locmariaquer knew of regular evenings the two spent together in Paris. He had only seen Pajot a handful of times at some receptions.

In any case, Dupin had already learnt a thing or two this morning.

At either end of the Bulgare’s counter – it was five or six metres long – two televisions were on at the same time, each on different stations. ‘TV Breizh’ was on one of them – the Breton channel. Of course, it was about the murders. A photo of Dupin was shown for a few seconds, ‘the young, yet experienced Parisian Commissaire from the Commissariat de Police Concarneau, who has solved a series of sensational cases in recent years, is leading the investigation.’ Thank God the people in the cafe were too preoccupied with the beginning of their day to take any notice of the Commissaire. It must still have been possible to read about the ‘tragic accident’ in the papers today – the news about the murder had arrived after the editorial deadline. There were multiple copies of Ouest France and Télégramme lying on the counter, not very far away from him. Dupin did not feel like reading the articles.

Dupin finished his third coffee and contemplated ordering a fourth, he had a feeling his brain still wasn’t functioning quite right. And he needed a croissant for his stomach. He had just made eye contact with the waitress when his mobile shrilled.

‘Who’s this?’

He had sounded unintentionally rude.

For a moment, nothing happened.

‘Hello?’ Dupin was annoyed.

‘Check out the activities of Pajot and Konan’s company, Medimare, and the Institut Marine de Concarneau.’

The voice sounded artificially disguised, muffled and low, far away. Deliberately montonous.

‘Who’s there? Hello? Hello, who’s speaking?’

‘This is about Medimare. Yannig Konan and Grégoire Pajot’s company.’

This was no joke.

‘What exactly is this about? Talk to me.’

No answer. Dupin waited. Nothing more, the caller had hung up. Suddenly, Dupin was wide awake. He froze, momentarily motionless.

Before he had even had time to think any more, his mobile rang again.

‘Where are you, Monsieur le Commissaire?’

‘I – – – Nolwenn?’

‘Yes?’

It took Dupin a moment to pull himself together.

‘What does Medimare mean to you?’

‘Hmmm – nothing at all.’

So the company couldn’t be well known.

‘I’ve just received an anonymous call.’

‘Oh?’

Dupin was glad to be able to tell Nolwenn about it, so it became more real.

‘I got a call a minute ago, asking me to examine the activities of Pajot and Konan’s company Medimare and the Institut Marine de Concarneau with a fine-tooth comb. He…’ something occurred to Dupin, ‘where did he get my number from?’

‘Before I left yesterday, I myself transferred your personal extension to your mobile, that’s what we always do at night during a case. He probably called your number in the Commissariat. It’s easy to get.’

‘Please check, Nolwenn.’

Dupin was still feeling the after-effects of this strange call.

‘We’ll know that very soon. But surely it was a withheld number.’

That was true, nobody would be so stupid.

‘I don’t know the name Medimare but that’s definitely one of the companies I was talking about yesterday. I’ll take a look at that straight away. What do you make of this call, Monsieur le Commissaire? It sounds extremely vague.’

‘No idea. But we have to find out everything about this company at once.’

The caller had told him very little. Still, it was a clue. If there was something fishy going on with the companies the two of them owned and they had made enemies from it, there might have been a motive – and people who had one. And sometimes an anonymous person did give a tip. But sometimes these calls meant nothing at all, they were sick jokes by people not involved. Or they turned out to be well-aimed diversions.

‘And the voice didn’t seem familiar to you?’

‘No. It was disguised. Although not very professionally.’

‘Was it a man’s voice?’

‘Yes.’

‘You know the Institut Marine, don’t you?’

‘Yes of course. I mean, I know as much as the next person.

Dupin’s apartment – given to him by the city – was around hundred metres away from the institute. If he stood on his narrow balcony and looked out to sea, it was directly to his right. The institute had a branch on the other side of the harbour by now, the ‘rive gauche’. An institute for marine biology – in all honesty, that’s as much as Dupin knew.

‘It’s the oldest research post for marine biology in the world. Which is no coincidence of course. Breton!’

Of course.

‘Well regarded, a large number of renowned scientists work there. The head is Professor Yves Le Berre-Ryckeboerec.’

‘Berk-Rib…?’

‘Professor Yves Le Berre-Ryckeboerec.’

This was the ultimate escalation for Dupin: complicated Breton names clustering together in double-barrels. He noted ‘Director, Institute’ in his notebook.

‘Is he based in the main building? Where the Marinarium is?’

There was a not very large but lovingly equipped Marinarium, no comparison with the Océanopolis in Brest, but Dupin liked it, even though it didn’t have any penguins. He’d visited an exhibition there only three or four weeks ago. The purpose of the exhibition was immediately obvious: ‘Fish on my plate, what’s your name?’ It was about the numerous types of fish in the area that you found at local fishmongers and on the restaurant menus. It demonstrated what they looked like before they ended up on the plate – alive, in their proper maritime habitat. There had been an incredible, colourful range, Dupin hadn’t been able to get his head round it.

‘I assume he’s based in the main building. I’ll check that.’

‘Yes. Get in touch.’

‘What are you going to do now?’

‘I’ll see.’

Dupin hung up.

Should he take the anonymous phone call seriously? His instinct told him: yes.

He felt a bit better anyway – the caffeine was doing the trick. Riwal and Kadeg would surely already be on their way to the airport. He had in fact intended to fly to the islands with them, to begin by speaking to Solenn Nuz. Then to the diving instructor. But he also wanted to talk to the mayor of Fouesnant. And the doctor from Sainte Marine, who was probably one of the last people to have spoken to Konan. Dupin had a series of urgent questions.

He reached for his phone.

‘Riwal?’

‘Yes, chief?’

‘Fly without me. I’ll come later. I’m paying a quick visit to the Institut Marine. You and Kadeg get to work on what we discussed yesterday evening. I want to know immediately if there’s anything interesting. No matter what. You’re aware it’s about every detail, every irrelevant-seeming circumstance.’

‘Understood.’

Riwal probably knew these sentences off by heart already. But he had not sounded resigned.

‘The examination and salvaging of Pajot’s boat, who is going to supervise that? Goulch?’

‘Definitely. How are you going to get to the Glénan, chief?’

‘We’ll see. I’ll be in touch.’

Dupin hadalmost hung up.

‘Riwal, wait.’

‘Yes, chief?’

‘One more thing, I want to know the situation with Lucas Lefort’s estate as soon as possible. Whether Madame Lefort will inherit everything. And talk to Madame Menez again, the assistant.’

‘Anything specific?’

‘Lucas Lefort wanted to have some cargo boat or other for the coming week. Take a look at that. And ask what the boat can be used for. And find out what led Madame Menez to end up on the Glénan. Her story.’

‘Her story?’

‘Exactly.’

Those were two things that had been going through his mind yesterday. Two among many other things.

After they ended the conversation, Dupin took his notebook and pen, stood up, placed ten euro on the little red plastic plate and left the Bulgare.

His car, an old, much-loved, boxy and unwieldy Citroën XM, which he had not replaced with a new official car yet, against all of the Prefecture’s instructions, was right in front of the door. The sun had come up now and the traffic heavy Route Nationale, which was ten or fifteen metres in front of him, ran eastwards towards Concarneau, into a dazzling orange-pink sky.

*   *   *

It was eight o’clock on the dot. The director had arrived at almost the exact same time as Dupin. For science, the working day began early.

It was an impressive office that the director was sitting in, impressive for its size alone, a good forty metres square Dupin guessed, but especially impressive due to its view: through the panorama window you could see far out over the open Atlantic. The fifth floor of the dignified, dark-grey, stone building – which looked all of its hundred years and had resisted the tossing surf with its rear side built directly into the sea – boasted a view like that from a lighthouse.

Director Le Berre-Ryckeboerec was an angular, not exactly tall man in his late fifties with a gaunt, wan face and not much hair, whose pale appearance was only lent vitality by his extremely lively, light green eyes. He was sitting behind an intimidatingly sharp-edged wooden desk, wearing a dark grey suit that had obviously been elegant once, but was now worn-out.

It was clear the director’s secretary was a little shocked by the Commissaire’s unannounced visit. She was sure to have heard about the triple murder. Without announcing him, She had led Dupin into the Director’s room after a brief, hasty knock. He had, it seemed, only just sat down and obviously thought her behaviour inappropriate.

‘I would have liked to make a call first, Madame Sabathier. And since when do we accept visitors who do not give any notice?’

He was pointedly acting as though Dupin was not in the room at all. His voice was – in contrast to his outward appearance – powerful and authoritative.

‘I’m terribly sorry, Monsieur le Directeur, it won’t happen again. I just thought – Monsieur le Commissaire Dupin is in fact investigating this awful murder case on…’

‘I know perfectly well about the murder case.’

The conversation was still taking place without any acknowledgement of Dupin’s presence.

‘But that is no reason to suspend etiquette and manners. Or to upset my working day.’

Dupin felt an angry buzzing in his solar plexus. His rage was growing from second to second. ‘I think it is, Monsieur,’ he said. ‘A triple murder thoroughly upsets everything.’ Director Le Berre-Ryckeboerec looked him coldly up and down.

‘And the investigations in this murder case lead you to the illustrious Institut Marine? Well, the institute, along with its one hundred and fifty international scientists, welcomes you warmly. How can we be of help?’

On the journey here, the anonymous call had already started to seem like a bizarre dream to Dupin. He had to admit that the vague hint at some kind of ‘activities’ was shaky ground for questioning, especially under these hostile conditions. And apart from the minimal information available online about Pajot and Konan’s business, which Nolwenn had sent through to him shortly before his arrival, Dupin knew absolutely nothing. All in all, an extremely weak starting point. There was nothing for it but to take the bull by the horns, an option that was very much in keeping with Dupin’s character anyway.

‘It’s about the illegal business transactions between the institute and Medimare – the company that belonged to the two of the three men who have just been victims of murder.’

Dupin’s insinuation was not backed up by anything. But he needed to know whether he was on the right track and caution was hardly going to get him anywhere here. The director sat up straight, his face becoming even more pointed, his mouth more thin-lipped, his eyes, now fixed keenly on Dupin, had narrowed into slits.

‘I don’t think I quite understand what you just said.’

‘I’m happy to repeat it.’

Dupin needed to persevere now. It wasn’t difficult for him, the antipathy had been spontaneous and strong. Dupin knew these kinds of characters.

‘I understand – there’s a method to your humour.’

Now Le Berre-Ryckeboerec’s irritation was clear too. Dupin was on the point of losing his temper. He tried to regulate his breathing (he was proud that he had learnt this, the basics at least: take a deep breath into the stomach, wait five seconds before breathing out slowly, then five more seconds before breathing in – this delay was important!). All of the life had drained out of the secretary’s face in the last half a minute, standing motionless as though rooted to the spot.

‘I don’t think I will be having this conversation, Monsieur le Commissaire.’

Le Berre-Ryckeboerc knew that he needn’t say a word now, here.

‘I will be consulting our lawyers immediately about your outrageous insinuations. We have maintained excellent business links with Mr Konan and Mr Pajot’s company for many years. Like other companies, they have acquired patents and licenses from us. If you are interested in these topics, go ahead, that will be a matter for communication to our lawyers. I suggest that we bid each other farewell now.’

‘Yes, that would be best for all of us.’

Le Berre-Ryckeboerec turned to Madame Sabathier as if Dupin had already left the room:

‘I will place my call now, as planned. And if you could inform Monsieur Daeron that I wish to speak to him here in the institute.’

Dupin’s thoughts were racing, but he couldn’t think of any more tricks that he might have had up his sleeve.

‘We will,’ Dupin said softly, almost whispering, yet harshly and acidly, ‘we will look at every tiny detail of this cooperation with Medimare, everything that has existed and exists,’ a subtle smile showed in one corner of his mouth, ‘we’ll take this opportunity to put the entirety of your business activities under the microscope. I’m looking forward to this, Monsieur le Directeur.’

Dupin didn’t wait for a reaction, but turned on his heel and left the office. He took the lift, which was unbearably slow.

He already had his mobile to his ear as he left the building.

‘Nolwenn?’

‘I was just going to…’

‘I need a search warrant. For the institute. Doesn’t matter how. Does not matter at all. And immediately. We have to check the institute’s business links to Medimare, especially the sale of licenses and patents, all of the research output.’

‘Are you in the institute already?’

Nolwenn sounded slightly confused.

‘I – am already outside again.’

‘You’re outside again already?’

‘It was a very short conversation. As I said: we need a search warrant.’

‘Did any new suspicious facts come out of the – very short conversation with the director?’

‘I think so.’

‘We ought to have something more than a vague tip from an anonymous caller.’

‘The director of the institute acted completely uncooperatively. I’ve got the well-founded suspicion, that he has made false statements and is covering up the truth – that delaying would be dangerous. That he will immediately get rid of incriminating documents. – That’s got to be enough.’

In these last phrases, Dupin had – albeit incoherently – put together the formal requirements for obtaining a search warrant.

‘Call the Prefect, Nolwenn. Say it’s about an acute suspicion and there is explicit, acute danger of the suppression of evidence,’ Dupin was absolutely resolute, ‘I want this search. Tell him it’s indispensable in solving the murder of his friend. The first good lead. He’s to call the investigative judge in charge personally or try the public prosecutor’s office. We will also need to take a look at the business premises of Medimare, Paris.’

‘Fine.’

That was the ‘fine’ that Dupin loved about Nolwenn. The more difficult it got and the more hectic it got and the more the pressure grew, the more Nolwenn liked it.

‘Wonderful. Speak to you later, Nolwenn.’

Dupin hung up.

He had reached his car, in the lower part of the large carpark in front of the Port de Plaisance, very close to his flat.

He dialled Kadeg’s number.

‘Where are you, Kadeg?’

‘I’m at the diving centre, Riwal is at the sailing school. I…’

‘Call Nolwenn. We’ve got an anonymous tip about illegal business activity between the Institut Marine in Concarneau and a company held jointly by Pajot and Konan. It’s called Medimare. We don’t know much more than that yet. It buys and sells patents and licenses for pharmaceutical and cosmetic products based on findings from marine biology. The headquarters are in Paris. Nolwenn is still researching. We are trying to get a search warrant right now. For the institute and for Medimare.’

‘What concrete suspicion do you have?’

‘I don’t have a concrete suspicion,’ Dupin was aware that that didn’t sound very strong, so his voice sounded all the more determined, ‘but I would like everything to be probed, all business connections. I have no idea what dodginess could be going on there – but find it! I want you to deal with this. Rigorously. I mean really rigorously.’

‘I understand.’

Kadeg’s tone, even more so than his words, made it clear to Dupin that he really had understood. The disagreeable part of Kadeg’s nature, which was the majority of it – there was also a small other part – was made for tasks like this. Kadeg was like a terrier at times like these.

‘As I said, coordinate with Nolwenn. She’s also trying to arrange for us to have a team from headquarters for the operation. You are going to lead this, Kadeg.’

‘I look forward to it.’

‘Speak later.’

Dupin sat still a moment longer before starting the engine. Wait five seconds before breathing in, five seconds before breathing out. Deep in the stomach.

Dupin did not know whether they would actually get the search warrant, it wouldn’t be easy, not matter how forcefully he had just expressed it and no matter how much Nolwenn would devote herself to it. What they had was anything but compelling. He also knew that his behaviour just now in the institute might not been very clever. He had not achieved anything for the time being. But would he have got more out of that man if he had been more diplomatic? In any case, he didn’t have the faintest idea if this tip would lead anywhere at all or whether they would even find anything relevant during a search. Perhaps the vague hint at the business links was just to create confusion, a diversion. Waste time. The caller had not supplied proof of any kind that he was well informed and really knew something. But – he had existed. And one thing was clear: the director was an extremely unpleasant individual. Dupin was looking forward to the look on the director’s face when Kadeg was standing in front of him with the search warrant. And there was another thought that pleased him about this – and it would also mean his approach wouldn’t have been completely wrong: a search would really make waves. In the media too. It would be a clear demonstration that the police were determined to do everything possible and were proceeding with massive resources and the clearer this was, the more nervous the culprit would become. Nervous culprits act more rashly. And, ultimately, make mistakes. Though Dupin had to admit that the murder plan itself, as far as he could guess from the current state of the investigation, did not point towards a nervous personality.

Dupin turned the ignition key. He drove off, fumbling about at the tiny buttons of the car phone. If he were honest, he still had no real idea what Medimare actually did. Everything Nolwenn had said was very abstract. Patents and licenses for research results.

‘Nolwenn?’

‘I’ve already spoken to the Prefect, Monsieur le Commissaire. He is very uncertain, but he’s trying. Personally. I’m to tell you that you hopefully know what you’re doing – and that you will be in regular contact with him, he…’

‘Tell me, in as much detail as possible, what Medimare does.’

‘They buy research results from institutes, which enable pharmaceutically and commercially viable products to be produced from biological and biochemical research into living materials in the ocean. The research institutes partly finance themselves through these kinds of means, they…’

‘You were reading that out.’

‘Sorry?’

Nolwenn had a near photographic memory.

‘Nothing – what does that mean, what kind of products would they be?’

‘Biodegradable, synthetic materials for instance, a really big thing, or completely new kinds of antibiotics, innovative cosmetics, alternative energy sources, potential cancer drugs. All those kinds of things,’ she raised her voice dramatically, ‘Brittany’s marine environment is teeming with lifeforms that represent incredibly valuable resources. It’s very much up and coming, Monsieur le Commissaire. They’re called blue biotechnologies. In Brittany…’

‘I see. That’s all I wanted to know. I take it there’s big business at stake there.’

‘Very big business, yes. Think of the cosmetic industry alone,’ she broke off briefly, ‘I brought you in a sample of hand cream last November. Fluidum. Do you remember?’

Dupin remembered. He found it embarrassing, he had never used it, not only because he never used creams but also because he had never understood the purpose of a cream specifically for your hands. Yet the memory was even more embarrassing because it had been a discreet hint from Nolwenn at a Christmas present for herself. He had only understood that when it was far too late, after he had already bought another of the ceramic maritime bowls from a factory in Quimper that he had been enthusiastically giving her for the last three Christmases running (Nolwenn had once carelessly implied that she liked them).

Dupin didn’t answer.

‘That excellent cosmetics range, based entirely on all-natural brown algae. That little light blue tube, do you remember?’

At least Nolwenn didn’t lapse into her harsh tone of voice. Dupin was relieved.

‘I remember. It makes your hands very soft.’

Nolwenn sighed gently.

‘Unique across the world! A natural phenomenon for your skin. With all the vital minerals. A concentration of the whole Atlantic!’

Dupin wanted to reply that he was unsure whether it was even possible for minerals to be absorbed via the skin, but he knew that this wasn’t about that.

‘Kadeg will get in touch in the next few minutes, because of the Medimare-thing. I want him to lead the search. If we get it through.’

‘Good. I’ll be expecting his call. What are you planning now, Monsieur le Commissaire? Should the helicopter pick you up?’

Nolwenn was back on top of things immediately.

‘I think I’d really like to speak to the mayor of Fouesnant.’

‘I’ll let him know you’re coming.’

‘I’m just at the last rond-point, heading towards the Route Naitonale.’

Nolwenn hung up.

*   *   *

La Forêt-Fouesnant was an idyll. And yet not too picturesque, Dupin thought, it narrowly avoided that. A wide sea inlet extended into the village, giving it a small quay. The local fishermen’s pretty, Atlantic-coloured wooden boats were resting contentedly on their sides now that it was low tide. Gently curving, low hills rose up from the harbour, where the little village, which was part of the larger Fouesnant, was widely scattered. Lovingly restored stone houses in the typical Breton style, cosy cafes, a wonderful newspaper shop, a baker famous for miles around. And also: a small piece of the once typical ancient Breton woodland with large oaks, ivy, mistletoe, a druidic, mythical wood that you drove through on a scenic road. It was ten minutes to Concarneau, the same distance to Quimper. It was here that the mayor of the little ten thousand-soul community lived – Fouesnant and La Forêt-Fouesnant taken together – of which the Glénan were officially speaking a part.

Even this morning the sun was surprisingly strong and apart from a scattering of the typical fair weather clouds of immaculate white, the sky was a magnificent blue. It would hold up. Dupin’s sincere admiration for the Bretons’ incredible skills in reading and predicting the weather had prompted him to dabble in this art himself. He had made a hobby of it – and: he thought of himself as not unskilled. His knowledge had increased year on year: the definitive knowledge of what the signs consisted of and how they were meant to be interpreted.

Monsieur Du Marhallac’h – Nolwenn had got through to him straight away – hadasked Dupin to visit him at his home, where he had a small office. It was an unremarkable house, one of the few new ones. Sensible, not too big, not too small, not flashy or showy, but still impressive. It suited Du Marhallac’h perfectly, Dupin thought, it matched him in a curious way. He was also neither tall nor short, fat nor thin, had no very striking features, but not a greying ghost either – distinctly average.

The office was located in an angular wooden extension, built out into the garden. The office furnishings tended far past the ‘unremarkable’ and into the ‘clearly ugly’. The wallpapered walls were a dreary pastel colour and, for no reason, decorated with a kind of light blue pattern at the top. They were covered in amateur photographs stuck in colourful plastic frames, showing scenes of Fouesnant and the surrounding area.

‘I take it it’s still too soon to ask for your initial assumptions about what happened on the islands, Monsieur le Commissaire?’

‘Indeed it is.’

Dupin needed to concentrate. He was, of course, still wrapped up in thoughts of Medimare. But even yesterday evening he’d had a strong instinct that he should be speaking in-depth with all regular guests and residents of this ‘wonderful world out there’. And the mayor was a central figure in this world. Dupin had some pressing questions for him.

‘It’s our mission to know – not to make assumptions.’

It took the mayor a moment to reply to this.

‘It’s absolutely unbelievable. Everything, the whole case! Especially the idea that the murderer committed the deed in full view of us all in the Quatre Vents. Indeed I was there myself, the evening before last, I mean.’

The mayor broke off for a moment, trying to meet the Commissaire’s eye. Dupin made it clear with a movement of his eyes that this was nothing new to him.

‘I was sitting at the table right next to the two of them. My usual table. It was a lively evening, like it always is in the Quatre Vents – and in this cheerful crowd, there was a murderer amongst us!! A person with such evil energy. It’s beyond the power of my imagination.’

Dupin hadn’t been listening properly to this last sentence. Something had occurred to him. He was looking for his notebook in his jacket pocket. He thought he had made a note of it. He leafed through the pages of his Clairefontaine. Du Marhallac’h continued talking, but kept looking at the Commissaire with increasing irritation. ‘Marc Leussot, marine biologist, also journalist,’ that was it. Marine biologist. Maybe it didn’t mean a thing. But the words ‘marine biologist’ had – this morning – now gained a new significance.

‘If you could please excuse me for a moment, Monsieur Du Mar… Monsieur le Maire.’

Dupin stood up and went – without waiting for an answer or signal from the mayor – to the narrow door of the extension and stepped out into the garden.

He dialled directory inquiries.

‘Could you please put me through to the Institut Marine de Concarneau? Thanks.’

It only took a second.

‘Bonjour. I would like to speak to Monsieur Leussot please.’

The high-pitched female voice at the other end of the line was incredibly friendly.

‘Docteur Leussot does field studies on the Atlantic most of the time, he’s not in his office currently.’

‘We’re talking about Marc Leussot, the researcher, journalist and – permanent employee of the institute, though?’

The answer came hesitantly this time, the question was unusual.

‘Oh yes. Docteur Marc Leussot.’

‘Thank you very much then.’

Dupin hung up. He had remembered correctly. And he had found out something interesting. Leussot was a permanent employee of the institute.

The garden, to which Dupin had not paid much attention earlier, was not so small after all and it was clearly meticulously well cared for. But despite all the calculated grandeur, it seemed fussy and impersonal and the plants looked as though they had been counted: two camellia bushes, one in white, one in a delicate pink, a rhododendron, some mimosas, a sky-high dog rose, a smattering of cowslips, narcissi, azaleas, a stunted juniper. A prototypical Breton garden. Walking slowly, he returned to the mayor’s office.

‘Investigative duties. My apologies again.’

Dupin made a vague but conciliatory gesture and sat down again.

‘So you were in the Quatre Vents yourself the evening before last. You were sitting at the table right next to Konan and Lefort, and nothing unusual struck you?’

There was a flicker n Du Marhallac’h’s eyes, perhaps fear, Dupin couldn’t say.

‘No. I’ve already thought about it of course. It was like it always is. I remember Konan going to Monsieur Tanguy’s table once. Monsieur Tanguy from the diving club. The amateur archaeologist. Lefort didn’t sit at the table much, Konan did most of the time. Lefort spoke to a young woman who looked like a sailing student.’

‘Did you see him speaking to Madame Menez, Madame Lefort’s assistant?’

‘No.’

The ‘no’ had come quickly and definitively.

‘Monsieur Konan was sitting on his own for a while too,’ said the mayor.

‘And you didn’t notice anything suspicious generally? At the table? Or at all?’

‘No.’

‘You were closer to the two of them than anybody else that evening.’

The mayor looked at Dupin a little uncertainly.

‘We’re especially interested in one half hour or three quarters of an hour. Between quarter past eight and nine o’clock.’

‘If I recall correctly, they sat together at the table for a few minutes at the end, Konan and Lefort. And they were still eating something. But I have to admit that I’m not absolutely sure.’

‘The two of them didn’t seem different from usual to you?’

‘Not in the slightest.’

Dupin flicked through his notebook.

‘Did you see a Docteur Le Menn? Speaking to Lucas Lefort?’

‘No.’

‘Devan Le Menn, a GP, with a practice in Sainte-Marine.’

‘Oh, I know him. Everyone here knows him. Most of them are his patients. A very good doctor. But I didn’t see him. No. I don’t think he was there.’

‘The two Nuz daughters saw him. Just briefly. Speaking to Lefort. At the bar.’

‘Funny, I didn’t see him. But there’s constant a coming and going in the evenings. Some people are just quickly picking up something to eat. You can get everything to go.’

‘Le Menn is a regular?’

‘Oh yes. A friend of Monsieur Lefort. And also his doctor.’

‘A friend?’

That had slipped out of Dupin’s mouth in surprise.

Du Marhallac’h seemed confused for a moment, then he smiled:

‘Of course, you’ve already heard a huge amount about Lucas Lefort already.’

‘Do you think he was different from what people say about him?’

‘I…’ the mayor hesitated briefly. ‘First of all I have to say: I’ve only known him reasonably well for the last two years. But really not very well. I try to see things in an impartial way, not to have prejudices, to be objective, to mediate, that’s my disposition – and that’s how I understand my role. It’s an odd world out there – an odd community of odd people. So it’s difficult to judge something from the outside. It’s often a question of old stories. I try to stay out of that. Lucas Lefort was a prominent man. Well-off. A dyed-in-the-wool bachelor, I reckon. What’s certain is that he was completely different to his sister. To everyone else out there. That is definitely true. But, as I said, I didn’t even know him well.’

Dupin made a few scrawled notes.

‘Apparently you announced you wanted to reconsider his new plans for a greater tourist development in the Glénan sympathetically – all earlier plans having been vehemently rejected by your predecessors.’

Dupin’s voice changed at this sentence, not that he had meant it to. It became hard.

‘Reconsider sympathetically is overstating it. I just made it clear that the council and I wanted to take a meticulous look at the new ideas and plans, and wouldn’t toss them out wholesale ahead of time. What we received was a very ambitious project for sustainable, ecological tourism that, yes, does also concern the sailing school and the diving school, but goes a good bit further than that.’

‘I didn’t think the plans had even been received yet.’

‘Not officially. They have not been submitted as of yet. But Lucas Lefort presented the project to us for the first time at a meeting a few weeks ago, informally. Which is absolutely routine,’ Monsieur Du Marhallac’h had switched into a mayoral style of speech. ‘As I say: we have not received any official proposal – and in any case, it’s clear that an implementation is rather unlikely. The coastal protection laws are extremely strict on all French coastlines. And what’s more, the Glénan are a designated conservation zone, which means, in fact, nothing is allowed.’

‘If I understand correctly, hundreds of sailing and diving students stay the night where nothing at all is allowed, albeit in the most basic conditions. On several of the islands.’

‘You know France. We have our strict laws – and we have what happens in practice.’

Dupin couldn’t tell if there was a note of criticism or pride in this.

‘Was Monsieur Lefort acting alone in this matter? I mean, was he running this project off his own bat?’

‘I couldn’t say.’

The mayor looked gravely at Dupin.

‘You’re wondering whether Monsieur Konan and Monsieur Pajot might have been involved? Financially?’

‘For example. Monsieur Pajot was a building contractor, it would not be that far-fetched at all. And Monsieur Konan was an investor, amongst other things.’

‘It is absolutely possible, Monsieur le Commissaire, but it’s pure speculation. Lucas Lefort always spoke of “I” and an anonymous “we”, but that didn’t necessarily mean a plural.’

‘Did you know Yannig Konan better?’

‘No, just from the Glénan, from evenings in the Quatre Vents and the conversations there.’

‘And Pajot? Did you know him?’

‘No, not at all. I just know his name. And I know that he owns one of the two biggest construction companies in Brittany.’

The mayor’s forehead furrowed in deep lines, a little theatrical, Dupin thought.

‘You are wondering whether there could be a story at the bottom of this that could have been a motive for murder?’

‘A big issue and lots of money is at stake with this project, if I understand correctly?’

Du Marhallac’h was silent.

‘So what did Lefort’s specific plans for the islands look like then?’

‘He had a lot in mind. You must know that the sailing school is already one of the largest in Europe. This was about a tourism and sporting master plan. He was planning new developments on Penfret, Cigogne and Le Loc’h. Hotel complexes, sports complexes. Ecological, sustainable and exclusive. With a small harbour for yachts. He had a well-known architect from Paris on hand, he had plenty of connections at his disposal. Everything would have been run on wind and solar power, that’s already the case on Saint-Nicolas, albeit on a smaller scale. A proportion of the revenue would have been put into the even more effective ecological protection of the archipelago.’

Du Marhallac’h was a perfect politician – and Dupin could hardly imagine anything worse. Slippery as an eel, ruthlessly elastic, a rhetorical show to hide other things, mostly personal interests and to pursue them uncompromisingly at the same time.

‘The local council is against this project.’

‘The old local council. There were utterly irrational entrenchments.’

‘I see. “Irrational entrenchments”.’

‘A project like this needed to go through every authority first.’

‘When did Lefort submit plans for developing the Glénan for the first time?’

‘Ten years ago. Approximately.’

Dupin made a note and underlined it vigorously. Twice. Du Marhallac’h peered curiously at the notebook.

‘Did he present them a second time in recent years?’

‘No, he must have let them lie for a few years.’

‘Who was amongst the opponents to this plans?’

‘Almost everyone. Even though most of them probably weren’t very familiar with the plans at all.’

‘The most vehement opponents?’

‘His sister. I’m sure you already know that. Madame Menez too, certainly, the assistant. The whole sailing school. The head of the diving school, Madame Barrault. She is very prejudiced,’ the mayor suddenly looked quite uncertainly at Dupin, ‘I mean: she has a very set opinion. Solenn Nuz too, of course. She is – she is the other owner of Saint-Nicolas. Bananec and Quignénec belong to her too. She – she naturally has her own interests…’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Nothing in particular.’

Dupin was aware that Du Marhallac’h was acting in a disloyal way. And Du Marhallac’h must have been aware that Dupin noticed it.

‘I think the majority of the residents on the coast were against the plans. In the past the politicians were too, for the most part. Definitely the press, the Ouest France as well as the Télégramme. Monsieur Leussot for example,’ the mayor hesitated, ‘a marine biologist who also likes to work as a journalist, was passionately committed to opposing Lefort’s plans. In my view it was a purely ideological fight, it doesn’t interest me. My concern is to make everything more objective.’

There it was again. That unspeakable ways of a politician. Dupin glowered.

‘Did Monsieur Leussot write articles opposing Lefort’s plans?’

‘Biased, drastic articles.’

‘And against the new plans too?’

‘As I said, Lefort had not yet presented them to the public, just to us, orally. An absolutely routine procedure. The media obviously got wind of it, it was not a clandestine meeting after all. But since not much is known yet, there have just been short reports in the papers so far. You mustn’t forget that Lefort is still a famous person in Brittany – the great sailor. No matter how unpopular he may have been with some people.’

‘The marine biologist wasn’t involved in these short reports?’

‘No. Not as far as I know.’

The shrill ring of Dupin’s phone made both men jump.

It was Nolwenn.

‘If you could please excuse me again, Monsieur le Maire.’

It wasn’t a question, Dupin had already stood up and was hurrying towards the door and into the garden. He picked up there.

‘That was complicated, Monsieur le Commissaire,’ Nolwenn’s voice was, by her standards, a little flustered, ‘the Prefect called them both: the public prosecutor and the investigative judge in charge. I’m to tell you he felt very uncomfortable doing it. He had to claim that there was an acute danger of suppression of evidence. He assumes the Director will lodge an appeal immediately. He knows Le Berre-Ryckeboerec. In fact he has a lot of respect for him, he…’

‘We’ve got the search warrant?’

Dupin felt an almost childlike joy.

‘We are already organising the operation.’

Dupin was relieved, although it was all still making him quite nervous, because there was no truly incriminating evidence to justify the search yet. He would need something watertight soon.

‘That’s great, Nolwenn. Perfect. I’m still in the interview with DuMall … With the mayor.’

Dupin hung up. He thought for a moment and dialled Kadeg’s number.

‘It’s starting. We can get going on the search.’

‘I know.’

‘As I said: I want to know everything about the deals with Medimare. There must be papers, documents, data, find out everything. Don’t hold back.’

‘I never do, Commissaire.’

‘Wait, one more thing, Kadeg: I want us to probe all of the business activities of the three men meticulously. Beyond Medimare. Every company and also every share, every investment. As far back as we can trace. Get someone on it.’

‘Will do.’

This time Dupin walked back through the garden very slowly, opened the door to the office and sat back down on one of the four simple chairs standing around the angular formica table. All with a marked lack of haste. Du Marhallac’h looked as if he was expecting a short explanation at the least. Which Dupin did not feel obliged to provide.

‘What does Medimare mean to you?’

The mayor looked quizzically at Dupin.

‘That means absolutely nothing to me.’

‘A company belonging to Pajot and Konan that buys and sells research results from marine biology. Patents and licenses.’

‘Oh, I’ve heard of that. Not of that company, just that the institute sells research results to companies.’

‘You don’t know anything about the two of them owning a company like this?’

‘No.’

Dupin had the impression that he would not find out anything more of interest at this point. Not that he entirely trusted and believed Du Marhallac’h – he absolutely didn’t – but there was nothing more to be done at the moment.

‘Thank you very much.’

The mayor was clearly at a bit of a loss at this abrupt end to the conversation.

Dupin stood up. Du Marhallac’h followed suit.

‘I’ll see you to the door, Monsieur le Commissaire.’

‘These plans, the papers from Lucas Lefort’s presentation – do you have a copy of them?’

‘No. Monsieur Lefort had everything on his laptop.’

‘You don’t think that anybody is in possession of these plans as of yet and only you and the local council know them?’

‘Yes.’

‘When exactly was the meeting?’

‘The end of March. The twenty-sixth I think.’

They had already reached the garden.

‘I’m sure you’ll be hearing from us again.’

They shook hands.

‘I’m at your service. I have a personal interest in a speedy resolution to the case. As the mayor of the community affected, I mean.’

‘I totally understand.’

‘Au revoir.’

Du Marhallac’h had already turned his back on Dupin.

‘I have one last question actually.’

The mayor turned back round, a carefully friendly expression still on his face.

‘What were your conversations with Lucas Lefort and Yannig Konan about on the evening in question?’

There was a vague, somewhat strange undertone to Dupin’s question.

‘My conversations? Oh – we exchanged a few words every now and again. Seeing as we were at neighbouring tables. The usual. Very banal.’

‘And that was?’

‘We talked about the mackerel. About the scalloping now at spring tide. The weather, the coming storm. Things like that. Oh, and about the elections. Of course. The elections! And the price of langoustines. And finally about the pousse-pieds.’

‘The what?’

‘They are the rarest of all seafood, people say: the king of seafood. They grow in extremely difficult places to get to for three months of the year. The Japanese buy them from us for three hundred euro a kilo, a sushi delicacy. You won’t have heard of them, in Paris…’

‘Three hundred euro a kilo?’

‘Three hundred and more. Really delicious, really iodine-rich. The ones from the Glénan are considered to be the greatest delicacy.’

‘Pousse-pieds.’ Dupin repeated the word with something approaching awe.

‘Did either of them talk about what they had done that weekend? Or did of either of them mention Pajot?’

‘No and no. But there wasn’t any reason to anyway.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It was an absolutely normal evening, like always.’

‘Fine. Then thanks again. Au revoir.’

It seemed as though Du Marhallac’h still had something he wanted to say, but Dupin had already turned away.

He urgently needed a coffee. He had needed one even before the conversation. It had smelt a bit odd in the mayor’s office, a little like in the Commissariat, maybe it was the same cleaning product. Dupin was grateful for the fresh air, perfumed here in Fôret-Fouesnant at the beginning of May by the hortensia bushes in bloom.

He went straight back to his car, got in, fiddled with the ludicrously small buttons on the carphone and drove off.

‘Nolwenn? I want to talk to Docteur Le Menn. Devan Le Menn. He has his practice in Sainte-Marine. He lives there too.’

‘It’ll be best if I send you the numbers as a text message, Monsieur le Commissaire, then you can dial the number directly. The practice one and the private.’

‘Great. And I want to see a Monsieur Marc Leussot, a researcher from the Institut Marine, it doesn’t matter where he is. The secretary of the institute told me he was doing “field studies” at sea.’

‘I’ll be in touch straight away. We’ve also sorted everything with our colleagues in Paris, they are taking a look at Medimare’s office space there. The company has its headquarters right in the 6th, not far from Luxembourg.’

Dupin had to admit that he always got a bit sentimental and filled with yearning when he heard about the Jardin du Luxembourg. In the end he had lived three minutes away from the park, on Place Saint-Sulpice – and had grown up two minutes from the park, on Place de l’Odéon. The park was full of wonderful memories.

‘Great.’

‘Your mother tried again just now.’

‘Damn.’

He had forgotten his mother yet again.

‘I told her that you were on a complicated case. She’s very much – I’m just quoting here – assuming that you will at least make one quick call anyway.’

It was unbelievable. But not surprising.

‘She asked whether there are bath towels in the Hotel des Sables Blancs. And a “lounge”. And “a good restaurant”?’

Her tone of voice made it clear that Nolwenn did not find this funny.

‘She wanted to arrange to meet “an old girlfriend” there. She says she’s coming in two days anyway – and there are still some important issues to clarify.’

‘I’ll call her. Definitely.’

‘Good.’

He really did need to call her. Otherwise, everything would just go from bad to worse unnecessarily. In fact he needed to tell her honestly that right now he didn’t even know whether he would have any time the day after tomorrow. He had no idea how long he’d be on this case and he could not imagine a bigger nightmare than having his mother to visit during it.

*   *   *

Dupin had arrived at his destination: a large Total petrol station at the last rond-point in La Forêt-Fouesnant. It was big enough to offer coffee to take away, which was not particularly well thought of in Brittany and nobody did it apart from at petrol stations.

Dupin stopped right in front of the entrance. By the time he was back in the car again a short while later with two small paper cups, a croissant and the Petit Indicateur des Marées Bretagne-Sud, Nolwenn had already called back. The Petit Indicateur was a legendary institution: a fire-engine red booklet in a pocket-sized format, which reported details of all low tides and high tides with their coefficients for the whole year. It was sure to be useful.

‘Monsieur Leussot is in fact on his boat. Between the Moutons and the Glénan. He has no reception there though. But he can be reached via radio. If you want, I’ll radio him.’

‘Please do,’ Dupin hesitated. ‘No, leave it.’

He would prefer to visit unannounced.

‘Okay. Shall I arrange for a boat to pick you up?’

‘A boat?’

Dupin had of course been thinking of the helicopter. Which was absurd, if Leussot was on his boat in the middle of the ocean.

‘Good – it’s to be waiting in Concarneau. Where we cast off yesterday.’

‘I’m to tell you from Riwal, that he’s finished with the list. He still wants to talk to you about a few things.’

‘I’ll try to get hold of the doctor. Speak to you later.’

Dupin hung up. He took a foolhardy gulp of espresso – it tasted absolutely revolting.

Lovely. Everything was just lovely. What a great morning. He needed a proper coffee, this just wouldn’t do. Considering what it was made from, he turned the ignition key with a vigorous movement and stepped on the accelerator. The tyres screeched. It was just a small detour. It wasn’t far. And he could could talk to Riwal on the phone …

Four minutes later, Dupin was turning the engine off again. Just a stone’s throw from the Café du Port, which was right on Sainte-Marine’s stone quay. The pretty village’s old town was in a gently kept bay on the bank of the Odet, which was almost sea here already, half a kilometre wide, very close to the open Atlantic and with subdued tides. It was lined with willows and chestnut trees, camellias, wild jasmine, a few bushy palm trees – a typical Breton scene – an old chapel, picturesque fishermen’s cottages. The fine shingle beach in the little bay stretched almost as far as the Café du Port at low tide.

Dupin had always liked the bar and restaurant; everything was simple, plain, made of wood, all in the Atlantic’s primary colours: blue, white, red. This was where – apart from the Amiral – the best coffee in the area was. He’d liked it even more since he’d become friends with Henri, the Café du Port’s proud owner. They had met at the large Citroën dealer in Quimper when they were both making enquiries about the new C6, which they had not bought in the end, because they were both attached to their old XMs – even though both cars were extremely old and probably wouldn’t last much longer. The intervals between his visits to the mechanic had been getting shorter and shorter over the course of the past year, they were now four weeks apart, Dupin estimated. Nolwenn would say two. She had been on at him for quite a long time about getting round to buying a new car. Sometimes brochures lay as if by chance on his desk, for Breton cars only of course: Citroën, built in Rennes. Dupin had come in to the Café du Port more often in the months that followed, usually in the evening or if he had something to do in the area. He also like Héloise, Henri’s wife, the chef, who with her bushy black curls looked funny next to Henri’s almost bald head. Apart from the old Citroëns, they were united – more so than by any other affinities they had with one another – by the fact that Henri was also ‘new’ here. Not a Breton, but a Parisian like Dupin, although he had been living in Brittany for thirty years (which still qualified as ‘new’).

Henri was standing behind the counter, thoroughly absorbed in a list and hadn’t even made a move to raise his head.

‘I need a coffee. Double espresso.’

‘Bugger. Just a moment, Georges.’

Henri had answered warmly, but still hadn’t looked up.

‘Jeannine, a double espresso for the Commissaire!’

He had called this in the direction of the stout young girl who often helped out in the afternoons and sometimes in the evenings too.

‘The drinks delivery just came. I hate it, these lists are always utterly baffling.’

There was a moment of intense silence.

‘Damn it! Something’s not right.’

Henri’s sentence had ended in a laugh – he was glad to have a distraction.

‘I’ll be on my way again soon, Henri.’

‘Sure,’ Henri knew the score of course. Dupin would not need to say much.

‘Hell of a case.’

‘I think so too. Nasty guys. Konan, Lefort,’ Henri made a serious face.

‘Really?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Good. If so, the baddies are already dead. Maybe I’m looking for the goodies. In any case. I’m groping around in the dark.’

‘Don’t let the Bretons confuse you,’ Henri laughed.

Dupin was glad he’d come here. The young woman had brought the coffee. They never talked about work, he and Henri. Which Dupin liked very much. He drank the coffee down in one gulp. It was wonderfully strong and not in the least bit sharp. Delicious smells streamed into the restaurant from the kitchen. Dupin liked Héloise’s cooking, which, of course, was thoroughly Breton. Holy confession went like this: ‘If you are a true Breton – then you take butter. Morning, afternoon, evening: butter.’ Héloise was a passionate adherent of the ‘olive oil/butter border’, which Bretons really did take very seriously: the question of how successful the Roman invasion of olive oil as a universal tool in the kitchen had been and to what extent it had been possible to defend the Celtic–Gallic butter line, were regularly discussed in the two large regional papers. They doggedly published new reports about scientific studies on the clear medical superiority of butter, which had, apparently, been wrongfully brought into disrepute. Initially Dupin had been, as he was with everything, very sceptical, but through the ‘empirical evidence’ he had almost become a rebel himself.

‘I need to get going.’

‘Héloise has a marvellously crisp joint of Breton salt-lamb in the oven with thyme, fleur de sel and piment d’espelette. With fresh butter beans. A tiny plate perhaps?’

‘I really need to get going.’ Dupin sighed heavily.

‘Come again another evening!’

He hoped to. He always enjoyed sitting down with Henri. They talked about everything under the sun; about the world, which had been going off the rails for some time now. Even in France. Some time ago Chinese people had, after sending the prices of French wines soaring dramatically (a Chinese man had recently paid 167,000 euro for a bottle of Lafitte), finally bought the best vinery in the Bordelais. After thirty months of negotiations, the Château in the middle of Lalande-de-Pomerol had gone to a Chinese firm, Mingu, which had cornered China’s mass market with a ‘wine’ called The Great Wall. And it was clear that that had only been the beginning, further deals were already underway, including with corporations in other countries. This was in a country where wines, along with certain culinary delicacies and creations by great chefs de cuisine, naturally occupied the same class of cultural assets as great paintings or pieces of music. And of which, Dupin thought, France should be truly very proud. This was the ultimate surrender to commerce, the selling off of France, it was blood-curdling. Both Henri and Dupin, could get impressively riled up about it and it was their ritual to do so together.

‘I’ll come by some time next week. Depending on when I’m finished with the case. And in fact my mother is coming the day after tomorrow for a few days.’

‘Ah yes. I’d forgotten. Works out well. Come together then.’

‘I’ll probably need to cancel on her.’

Henri laughed, his deep, rather soft laugh, that spread over his entire face.

‘You’ll solve the case quickly. For your mother’s sake if nothing else.’

Dupin took his car key from the counter.

‘Salut!’

‘And call Claire.’

Now Dupin had to laugh. They had spoken about it. Never for long. But a handful of times.

‘I left her a message.’

‘Romantic!’

‘See you next week.’

‘Yes, see you next week!’

*   *   *

They were in the middle of the deep Atlantic blue, the Glénan were shimmering in front of them, the Île aux Moutons behind then. Although not far away, the Moutons could only be made out vaguely. They blurred hazily into the sea. It was misty, in a way. Dupin was familiar with this by now: the effect of the water in the air was enormous. The blue became gentle, soft, smooth, it was still a rich blue, but it didn’t have the lucid luminosity of yesterday. The haze changed the light, sun, colours, taste and smell of the air, it became very soft itself – and at the same time more powerful, more intense. It muffled the sounds, even the silence. It also became velvety. At the horizon to the west – far away – there was a thin, sharply outlined layer of dark cloud masses, a fine, firm line, so long that there was no end in sight.

The captain of the Luc’hed had turned off the motor. The crew was busy with the dinghy. The sea seemed almost perfectly flat – ‘like oil’, the Bretons said – not even the slightest movement was visible and yet the boat was being rocked, as if by a ghostly hand, in a vigorous, albeit strangely slow motion way.

They were about thirty metres away from Marc Leussot’s boat, the Kavadenn, which had a normal hull, but whose partially misshapen structures and installations made it clear that the boat had a specific function. It took a moment before Dupin recognised it as the boat that he had noticed at the quay yesterday while sitting in the Quatre Vents eating the delicious lobster.

Docteur Le Menn hadn’t been contactable at the practice or at home or on his mobile. He didn’t have consultation hours until the afternoon, he spent Tuesday mornings making house calls, if there were any – which today, according to the practice receptionist, hadn’t been the case. Dupin had driven back to Concarneau where the Luc’hed had been waiting for him. Nolwenn had arranged everything. He had spoken to Kadeg – who had already got his first meeting with the Director of the institute over with – on the phone again, but who seemed unimpressed and reported that two experts from Quimper had already disabled the institute’s server. The Director was currently consulting with his lawyers.

Nolwenn had then had Leussot radioed, to find out his exact position. So it had, like yesterday, been a speedboat that had lived up to its definition by tearing through the groundswell with Dupin onboard.

‘Over here, Monsieur le Commissaire.’

One of the police officers was already in the very small dinghy, which was rocking violently. This really was not Dupin’s habitat, no and he was extremely sorry to have thrown his justified decision of yesterday morning – to drop the whole boat thing – out the window so soon. He should simply have ordered Leussot to come to Saint-Nicolas. Dupin gave himself a shake. He mustered all his psychological strength and, thanks to his agility, which he generally wasn’t thought capable of due to his rather large build, he was soon on the tiny rowing boat. The outboard motor showed off its impressive horsepower, and soon they were approaching the Kavadenn with stunning speed. Leussot was standing on the stern where wide wooden steps led down into the sea.

‘Bonjour, Monsieur le Commissaire. Come on.’

Leussot held out his hand, but Dupin heaved himself on board without any help, in a not every elegant, yet precise way.

‘Bonjour, Monsieur Leussot.’

Leussot was a tall, very athletic man with fine facial features, lively eyes, rather long hair. He was, perhaps, mid to late forties. He was wearing short, washed-out shorts and an open black jacket with a white t-shirt underneath. The built-on bits of the boat looked even more misshapen up close.

‘I’ve just been taking care of lunch.’

Leussot spoke with a deep sense of calm, which perfectly suited the supreme, gentle strength which he radiated in general. Two fishing rods lay on the long bench that ran underneath the railing.

‘A vieille, wonderful, a magnificent specimen, look.’

Leussot lifted up a battered plastic bucket which had a large fin peeping out of it.

‘You won’t get this fish in any restaurant, in any fishmongers, or even back home on the coast. You have to eat it within a few hours of catching it, otherwise it spoils straight away. It’s one of the best edible fish in the world and found in healthy numbers here – still.’

Flecks of gold shimmered and diffracted the sunlight into soft rainbow colours on

the forty-centimetre long, fat, green-orange-red speckled fish.

‘Impressive.’

Unfortunately, Dupin couldn’t think of anything else to say. The Kavadenn was rocking just like the speedboat. He had hoped that it would be slightly less bad, since it was several metres longer.

‘I have some questions, Monsieur Leussot. You’re aware that we are investigating the murder case of Lefort, Konan and Pajot.’

‘I’m up to speed. If you like, we can go below deck, it’s not very spacious down there, but we’ll have some quiet.’

Dupin took this as a joke. Yet Leussot was looking at a narrow door behind the helm and was getting ready to make a move. He meant it seriously.

‘If you agree, I would prefer – to remain on deck. Out here in the open air.’

Having to sit cramped in a tiny room now was a traumatic thought.

‘Okay. Then I’ll see to the fish while we talk.’

The dinghy was almost back at the Luc’hed already.

‘What do you know about the business activities of the institute and Medimare? Are you involved in these activities in any way?’

‘Well, you get right to the point.’

Leussot didn’t let himself be thrown.

‘We have evidence of something amiss about these dealings.’

Dupin’s was very keen to keep this conversation, out on the open sea, as short as possible.

Leussot raised his eyebrows, his deeply tanned forehead furrowing.

‘Okay. I’ll tell you what I think: Konan and Pajot defrauded the institute, systematically, over and over, in conjunction with the Director, they were in things together – but I doubt that they were really actionable things. It’s all taking place in a grey area, nobody will be able to touch them, legally. No matter how much some researchers in the institute hated them, they acted skilfully. – That, for me, would be the quintessence.’

‘How did you come to this quintessence?’

Leussot had flipped open a long Laguiole knife and at that very moment the boat made a particularly severe movement, making the situation – Leussot half toppled onto Dupin – seem threatening for a moment. Dupin was too busy keeping his balance to worry about it. Leussot realised the strangeness of the little incident and smiled. With his left hand, he picked up the large, shiny fish which was still thrashing fiercely and set to work with practised movements. Quickly and precisely, he placed the knife to the underside of its head.

‘My research was also involved sometimes. Yes, you’re surely wondering that. They buy the results at a very early stage, at the risk of them not in fact being as viable as they initially appear, sometimes at prices that are far too low. The individual researcher doesn’t have any control over the business side of course, they are employed by the institute. Le Berre-Ryckeboerec profits from the deals from, amongst other things, the fact Medimare sponsors the institute – which provides the legendary third-party funding.’

The fish’s innards fell into the bucket. Leussot had taken them out with a few artful flicks of the wrist.

‘Pajot and Konan got patents at extremely reasonable prices. That was the deal. When in doubt, it was to the disadvantage of the researcher. Only, of course, if large discoveries were involved. But as I say: there won’t be proof of anything illegal there, is my guess,’ he fell silent for a moment, but then picked up the thread again immediately. ‘I also don’t think that they greased the director’s palm, that he personally received money in return. Even if he is a slippery asshole.’

Leussot stood up and went to the bow, leaning down dangerously far and holding the fish in the water – in a way that made it clear that the conversation with Dupin could continue in the meantime. The fish carcass was still twitching violently every few seconds.

‘How come you’re so sure of that?’

‘Intuition.’

For a moment, Dupin wanted to enquire as to what exactly Leussot meant by ‘asshole’ in reference to the director, but in fact it was already obvious. Leussot came back, placed the fish in a second bucket and sat down again.

‘What is this research specifically about?

Dupin had got out his notepad. Even on his first attempt to note something down, he realised that this was not a good idea on the boat. He went ahead anyway, although he already knew now that he would be puzzling over what he had noted down here in the coming days.

‘The seas are brimming with treasures of immense value for humans. We should use them before we’ve laid it all to waste. Take, for example, the wonderful Chondrus Crispus, a red algae that we are researching currently. A crazy life form. If it’s attacked by microbes, this algae literally transforms into a high performance factory for fatty acid oxides, which can be used in medications. So far, fifty thousand substances and organisms from the sea have been identified that are suspected to have therapeutic potential. And that’s just the beginning. Many of them are already undergoing clinical testing, a series of them have already passed.’

‘Marvellous.’

Dupin was indeed impressed. He liked topics like this, sometimes he bought himself natural science magazines, which he eagerly read, even if he strictly speaking didn’t actually understand a word of it.

‘Life comes from the sea – evolution had over three billion years here. It produced a great deal more shapes and functions in the oceans than on land. The biological variety is immense,’ Leussot was absolutely in his element, yet it didn’t seem like a show at all. ‘It’s estimated at three million different species.’

Leussot paused for quite a long time.

‘And right at the moment when people are beginning to grasp the sheer, infinite potential the oceans harbour, they themselves are destroying it. All of it.’

‘You mean the Glénan?’

‘I mean the bigger picture. The oceans are ill.’

‘And are you doing something about it?’

Leussot was clearly thrown for a moment, he wasn’t sure how Dupin meant that.

‘I am. I’m taking action.’

He fell silent again, but then a broad smile appeared on his face again.

‘Yes, I’m doubly, triple suspect. I was an enemy of Lefort, I opposed his destructive plans, wrote critical articles and am amongst those defrauded by Pajot and Konan’s company – and I was in the Quatre Vents yesterday evening. You’ve got to admit, that’s not too shabby.’

Suddenly his face grew serious.

‘Finding someone else who had the motive to kill all three of them will not be easy.’

‘If you’re also one of the people who go on treasure hunts, looking for sunken boats, coins, gold and silver…’

Dupin had remained pointedly matter-of-fact. He had suddenly remembered a dream just now that he’d had in his few hours of sleep last night. It had been utterly bizarre. So embarrassing that Dupin would have preferredit never to cross his mind again. He, Riwal and Kadeg had been worn-out old buccaneers. On a ridiculously small frigate, which was letting off valiant sustained fire nonetheless, they were chasing three majestic sailing ships overflowing with stolen treasures, helmed by Lefort, Konan and Pajot. But the best thing about the little frigate had been this: it could dive. Descend and then emerge again here or there at breakneck speed. That’s how they hunted down one after the other.

‘That’s child’s play,’ Leussot responded earnestly.

‘If I understand correctly, discoveries do sometimes happen.’

‘It’s not my thing.’

There had been something brusque about this sentence, Dupin thought.

‘So you don’t know of any “treasure hunt” going on at the moment – in this area?’

‘No.’

‘Did you personally come into contact with Pajot and Konan?’

‘I knew Konan by sight, from the Quatre Vents. He always came with Lefort. I’ve never said a word to him. Why would I? I’ve never seen Pajot all. I only know the name through Medimare. I don’t want to have anything to do with any of that.’

‘And Lefort, how was your relationship to him?’

‘There was none. The idea wouldn’t have occurred to me either. He was an awful guy. End of story. That would be my summary.’

Dupin was having some difficulty staying upright, the boat had rocked dangerously a few times.

‘And do you have a theory on the murders? Some idea of what might have happened here?’

‘One of the dirty tricks they pulled will have made someone angry. Truly angry.’

‘Do you know Docteur Le Menn? Did you see him in the Quatre Vents the evening before last?’

‘Le Menn? No. As far as I know, he wasn’t there.’

Leussot’s expression had darkened, he didn’t even try and hide it.

‘A friend of Lefort’s?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you know him personally?’

‘No.’

‘You know that he’s a doctor.’

Yes.’

Even this was a waste of effort. Leussot didn’t want to do this.

‘The new mayor appears to be another friend of Lefort’s, he…’

‘In his case, it wouldn’t surprise me if his favourable attitude towards Lefort’s plans had been motivated by money,’ this seemed to be weighing heavily on Leussot’s mind, ‘or else it was enough for him that, as the mayor, he would profit from the huge investment. Prosperity, growth, image, a tax income increased many times over. Those are the currencies of reality. Nature – the animals, the people, nobody gives a shit about any of that. Terrible that it sounds so cheap, like painting by numbers. But that’s exactly how it is. There’s no difference.’

‘The old development plans – were you very familiar with them?’ Dupin asked.

‘Yes. They were made public. I wrote extensively about them, several times in Ouest France, once even for the Libération. Interestingly, the plans were then never officially submitted. So never officially rejected either. It was probably clear after an intense discussion that they didn’t have a shadow of a chance and I believe Lefort didn’t want to show any weakness.

‘How long have you been working for the institute?’

Dupin was aware that his way of steering this conversation sometimes swayed back and forth as much as the boat – it must have been because of the sea, he had been feeling dizzy and little unwell the whole time. And something else had been distracting him since he’d got on the boat: an erratic, loud splashing that kept coming back every few minutes, accompanied each time by noises that were difficult to identify. At first, Dupin had looked around, not found anything and assumed that it must have been seagulls. They performed daring flight manoeuvres over the boats in the hope that there would something for them to take. Now the sounds were louder than before. Dupin looked around yet again. A group of dolphins was swimming past them, less than ten metres away, at breathtaking speed, diving down for a moment before coming back up, as quick as a flash. It was absolutely surreal. Dupin was dumbfounded. It was only with an effort that he managed to suppress the cry, ‘Real dolphins!’ He had never seen any in the wild before. They actually looked like they did in films.

Leussot had noticed Dupin’s surprise – although the word did not even come close to describing it.

‘They’ve been keeping me company since last week. These ones are very playful.’

This sentence could hardly have been uttered in a more off-hand way. Leussot had smiled smoothly as he said it.

‘I…’ Dupin really didn’t know what to say.

‘The tourists always lose their minds. They are great animals after all.’

The second sentence sounded conciliatory.

‘But the sea is full of wonderful creatures that are just as fascinating. Even more fascinating than dolphins. Take the tychoplankton, for instance.’

The group of dolphins had swum in a semi-circle around the stern of the boat and then, after what looked like a final jump, they went under and disappeared. The whole thing had lasted perhaps fifteen seconds. Dupin tried to compose himself again with all the strength he could muster.

‘Yes, I think we should get back to where we were. Back to our conversation, Monsieur Leussot. I had asked you how long you’d been working at the institute?’

Leussot looked quite mischievous, but then answered very matter-of-factly.

‘I came here as a young man, fifteen years ago. After studying in Paris, I started my research here, got a PhD, then went to Brest for a few years for larger projects and have been back for four years now. When Lefort tried to push through his plans the first time, I was still in Brest, but came here regularly. Lefort’s plans were my impetus for working as a science journalist. People have got to know what’s going on.’

It was evident that Leussot hadn’t given the dolphins another thought. Dupin had been forcing himself – reasonably successfully – not to scan the sea with his eyes again. He already felt ridiculous.

‘Fifteen years. And a journalist too. In Brest.’

Leussot looked seriously irritated. Dupin had to control himself.

‘Muriel Lefort, Madame Menez, Madame Barrault, Monsieur – the mayor, Solenn Nuz and her daughters, Monsieur Tanguy. Do you know them all personally?’

Now Leussot looked at the Commissaire for a moment, like a gormless young schoolboy.

‘You know – the Glénan. It’s a world of its own. It’s hard to explain, you have to experience it yourself. And in the Quatre Vents they come together: the inhabitants of this world and their constant stream of guests. We all know each other. Not as the people we are outside of this world, only as the people we are here.’

Dupin didn’t understand the literal meaning of this exactly, but he guessed what Leussot meant. More importantly: he had found a way back into the conversation.

‘And do you think anyone had a motive for an act like this?’

‘The village forces you close together, the sea, the Atlantic – into each other’s pockets, much closer than you’d like.’ It was as though Leussot had not even heard Dupin’s enquiry. ‘Even against the individual’s will. Sympathies and antipathies don’t come into it sometimes, not enmities, not even hatred. And more importantly: the archipelago may in fact bring people together – but in the end everyone is on their own.’

Even these sentences were cryptic, but Dupin had the feeling that they contained something important.

‘Hatred?’

Leussot draw a sharp breath in through his nose.

‘Yes.’

‘Who do you mean?’

‘Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean anyone specific.’

‘Muriel and Lucas Lefort? You mean the siblings? Or Madame Menez and Lucas Lefort? – You yourself and Lucas Lefort?’

‘I don’t mean anything in particular.’

‘It would be very helpful to us.’

Leussot was silent. Not an unpleasant silence. But one that made it clear that he would not answer.

‘And you didn’t speak to Pajot or Konan two evenings ago, I assume.’

Leussot looked almost amused.

‘I wouldn’t have made such an effort with the murder, believe me. Definitely not.’

He laughed. Leussot was very good. If it had been him – it would be impossible to behave more skilfully.

‘It’s quite a feat! A brilliant plan really,’ Leussot now contemplated Dupin’s question, ‘No. I sat as far away from them as possible, I always do that. I didn’t notice anything suspicious all evening. Nothing at all.’

Of course not, Dupin almost blurted out.

‘Depending on whom I had noticed something suspicious about, I might even forget it again, I have to admit.’

He smiled again. Dupin guessed that Leussot meant this sentence seriously.

‘Fine, then I’ll leave you to prepare your fish. It’s lunchtime after all. And I know what I wanted to know.’

That was true. He had learnt a lot.

Dupin raised his hand and looked over to the Luc’hed. The observant young police officers understood the gesture immediately and climbed into the dinghy without wasting another moment.

‘Yes, I’m going to eat now. And get back to work. Red algae are impatient creatures.’

‘Will be you be out at sea all day, Monsieur Leussot?’

‘We’ll see.’

He pointed towards the west with a minimal movement of the head, where the wisps of cloud had become undeniably denser, although they were still far away.

‘Actually, yes. At the moment, I’m more or less at sea all week,’ he smiled, ‘so you’ll know where to find me.’

The dinghy had come to a stop alongside the stern.

‘Bon appétit, Monsieur Leussot.’

‘Au revoir, Monsieur le Commissaire.’

Dupin climbed nimbly back into the little boat, which turned around just a moment later and travelled back to the Luc’hed. As it did so, he contemplated the sky with raised eyebrows. It was – apart from that growing dark streak in the west – the same unchanged blue. Dupin was slightly uncertain about his own weather forecast. But not overly so. The signs were too clear: Grand Marée, spring tide, full moon, then for thirty days the weather stayed the way it was on the evening of the full moon, that’s how he’d remembered …

‘Monsieur le Commissaire, Inspector Riwal has just radioed us. He needs to speak to you. You were already in the dinghy.’

The captain bent down to Dupin and offered him his hand, which Dupin accepted this time. He had forgotten that he had no reception here.

‘You’ll be with him in less than ten minutes, at top speed.’

‘Good. Full speed ahead then.’

Dupin couldn’t believed what he’d just said.

*   *   *

The air was absolutely still, even the ubiquitous Atlantic breeze could no longer be felt. Yet it was even hotter than yesterday. At the last moment, the islands had materialised in front of them, as if out of nowhere. And strangely, all of them did so at once. You were left with the impression: this is the last second before you’re dashed on them.

Dupin was briefly overcome by a vague suspicion which he quickly pushed aside. He was busy going over the conversations he’d had today in his head. And the dolphins came into his mind again too.

They were going past Guiriden’s long sandbar. To Dupin it was perhaps the most astonishing thing about the entirety of the Glénan. A few rocks at high tide, a little bit of land and green all around them, perhaps twenty metres by twenty and then – at low tide – suddenly two or three hundred metres of dazzlingly bright sandbar. Unbelievably white sand, falling gently away, even forming Caribbean-like lagoons. It was fantastic. Just like Henri had described it to him last year, on what have been his only trip to the Glénan before yesterday. Dupin had let himself be talked into a day on Henri’s brand new boat – an Antares 7.80 – which he had regretted enormously, as beautiful as it had been on Penfret. This was no normal sand here! It was coral sand! It was not a Breton exaggeration, as Dupin had initially suspected. This really was genuine coral sand. And there was only one instance of it in Europe and that was on the Glénan. Nolwenn had explained it vividly to him a few times before too. The sand on the archipelago consisted of chalky coral skeletons ground down over the course of millions of years. Snow white, fine, yet solid, not fly-away like powder. ‘This bears no relation to sand – little, crystalline pieces of coral,’ he recalled Nolwenn’s words. Of course, Breton sand in general was no ordinary sand, not some run-of-the-mill sand from some normal sandstone; it was mainly flawless granite sand. Sand that had broken away from the elemental granite ridges that made up Brittany, geologically-speaking. But if the coral thing sounded spectacular enough already, the real highlight of it was the explanation. The sand, or rather the corals, hadn’t been washed up somehow, no – they had once grown extensively right here: large, splendid corals. Right here – when Brittany was still in the tropics. This was not a joke or a metaphor or an analogy. It was reality. Dupin remembered the first time that Nolwenn had proudly said this: ‘For a long time we were an exotic, tropical landscape – in the heart of the tropics.’ He had found it almost too strange to laugh, which Nolwenn had noticed with an indignant look and countered with a geography lecture that was all the more serious for it. The position of the earth’s axis, Dupin had learnt, had shifted dramatically and with it, the climactic zones. So these really were tropical beaches here! Or at least they had once been. Bretons had, Dupin found, a special relationship with time, with the past, even the far-distant past. Which above all meant: it didn’t exist for Bretons, the past. It had not passed. Nothing was past. Everything that there had been was also present and would stay that way forever. This didn’t reduce the significance of the present at all, on the contrary: it made it even greater. It had taken Dupin some time to understand that. But at some point he had discovered that there was a truth in this that was very moving. And if you wanted to get by at the ‘End of the World’, you couldn’t forget it.

In the chamber the Luc’hed was going at a slower speed. Soon the quay at Saint-Nicolas came into view, the ugly triangular houses, the sailing school’s farmhouse, the diving school, the Quatre Vents. The captain moored expertly at the quay and soon Dupin was already on his way to ‘operation headquarters’.

‘What have we got, Riwal?’

The inspector was sitting at the same table they had sat at yesterday. He was so absorbed in his notebook that he hadn’t seen Dupin coming. Lots of A4 pages were stuck into it. He straightened up with a jerk and looked a little sheepishly at the large plate on the table in front of him, with the meagre remains of a lobster piled on it. Next to it stood two bottles of water and several glasses. And an empty wine glass.

‘You’ve got to drink a lot of water in this weather. I’ve conducted interviews with Madame Nuz and Madame Barrault. And with Madame Menez.’ He added, slightly more quietly, ‘I’ve just had something to eat.’

‘Excellent, Riwal. I’m going to do that soon too.’

The solid ground beneath his feet was making Dupin feel, by his standards, practically euphoric.

Riwal burst out with the news.

‘The doctor from Sainte-Marine, who apparently was also in the Quatre Vents briefly the evening before last, has been reported missing: Devan Le Menn…’

‘Le Menn is missing? Le Menn?’

Dupin’s mild fit of good cheer was evaporating.

‘His wife informed the police half an hour ago.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘He left his house around half seven this morning, he had a few errands to do. Amongst other things, he wanted to go to the bank in Quimper, he often does that on Tuesday morning if there are no urgent house calls. He was meant to meet his wife at twelve o’clock. He’s always on time. His wife seemed anxious.’

‘He’s not even two hours late yet. There’s no reason,’ Dupin hesitated, ‘to assume that something bad has happened yet.’

‘I have a bad feeling about this.’

‘Maybe there was a medical emergency, one of his patients. Something acute – and he hasn’t found the time to get in touch yet. He’s a doctor.’

Dupin himself didn’t believe this. He felt, if he were honest, the same way Riwal did. Although there really were, of course, quite a few possible explanations and Le Menn could turn up again any moment. However: disappearing at this point in time was too much of a coincidence.

‘Actually, what about the missing man from the Moutons, the angler?’

Dupin had completely forgotten him the evening before and this morning too, it was only as they were going past the desolate Moutons on the boat that he had crossed his mind again.

‘No news. We’ve checked whether there were any links to the Glénan, whether he came here sometimes or whether there are links to the three dead men – no, no and no. Apparently, he always moored between the mainland and the Moutons. Usually near the coast. His wife doesn’t remember him coming out as far as this in recent years. And she also didn’t know anything about a relationship with Lefort or either of the other two.’

‘That is strange.’

Riwal looked quizzically at the Commissaire.

‘This coincidence is quite strange, I mean. The timing. The proximity to the crime scene.’

‘But we’re not aware of any connections yet. And we’ve had a severe storm. It’s not uncommon for people to go missing during storms.’

Riwal was right. Dupin had been here for nearly four years, but it still gave him the creeps: the ‘lost or drowned at sea’ statistic for Finistère far outstripped the murder statistic. Every coast-dwelling Breton had heard such ‘fateful stories’ first-hand from people they knew.

‘How big are these Moutons exactly?’

‘Very small, a main island about two hundred metres long, a little island about thirty metres long. Lots of rocks.’

Dupin didn’t pick up where Riwal had left off. He was thinking. Riwal interpreted the short pause incorrectly.

‘If you’re wondering whether there are sheep there – no. The sailors call the white ridges of the surf “sheep”, moutons – and they, on the other hand, are always there.’

That hadn’t been what Dupin was pondering.

‘Going back to Le Menn. I want a large-scale manhunt. Maybe we’ll find his car. He must have parked it somewhere.’

Something was going on.

Riwal took a deep breath. ‘That leads us right to the heart of the case.’

He had spoken very off-handedly, as though absent-mindedly. Nolwenn called him the druid at moments like this. If Riwal’s ‘mystical’ side was essentially an amusing contrast to his appearance, his cheeky facial expression and his virtual youth (early thirties), it fitted with his new, decidedly stylish short hair even less. They had been speculating in the commissariat about whether this was the wedding haircut already. In two weeks’ time, Riwal was going to marry the strikingly pretty daughter of one of the wonderful fishmongers in Concarneau’s market halls. She worked for her father at the stall. Riwal was obsessed with langoustines, the medium-sized ones from Guilvinec, the ‘best in the world’. For a while he had bought them nearly every lunch break. At some point people in the office had figured it out and had certainly done so by the time Riwal was buying so many langoustines that he had to hand them out liberally in the Commissariat.

‘We have to talk to Le Menn’s wife. I want to know everything about his links to Lefort, Konan and Pajot, down to the very last detail. Who can drive out to her immediately?’

‘Our two colleagues from Concarneau, Le Coz and Bellec, are on the islands too and right now they are speaking to the last of the sailing and diving course participants who were in the Quatre Vents two evenings ago.’

‘Take Bellec off that. This is more important now.’

Bellec did not waste any time. He came at things head-on.

Dupin was extremely uneasy. If Le Menn’s disappearance was related to this case – what did that mean? What was going on here? Had there been another victim – or was the culprit on the run? Whatever had happened on this tiny speck of land – it had to do, Dupin felt, with its residents and regular guests. He would find the solution there. They had to look very carefully.

‘What about Kadeg and the institute?’

‘Nothing of interest so far. Kadeg last called half an hour ago. They have found the first documents and data relating to Medimare. But getting usable information out of them is no doubt not that simple. The press has got wind of the operation by the way, Télégramme and Ouest France are featuring it on their websites already. The radio station too. The director is acting like Rumpelstiltskin the whole time.’

‘I especially want you to take a look at the business documents involving Leussot’s research. You should also speak to the researchers Leussot dealt with.’

‘I’ll let Kadeg know.’

‘What about the headquarters of Medimare in Paris? Is there anything on that yet?’

‘Nothing relevant there yet either. Apart from the chief executive, the company officially only has scientific staff and a secretary, our colleagues are speaking to them right now.’

‘We need to examine everything, the account balances and transactions. The director’s too, and his private accounts. As soon as possible.’

‘Nolwenn will sort it. La tigresse.’

Dupin smiled. Yes, Nolwenn would sort it. Even though there would be yet more trouble.

‘I also want information about the mayor of Forêt-Fouesnant’s accounts.’

‘Do we have suspicious circumstances there? Without grounds, even Nolwenn won’t manage that.’

‘But hopefully we will have the bank statements for all of the three dead men’s bank details soon?’

‘Nolwenn is on it.’

‘I want to know whether there were transfers from business or private accounts belonging to the three to anyone here on the islands. No matter who. No matter how much.’

Dupin got out the Clairefontaine and saw that three-quarters of the notebook was already full.

‘Okay, let’s look more closely at: Leussot, the mayor, Le Menn, the director of the institute,’ Dupin leafed furiously, ‘also Tanguy. And Madame Menez, Muriel Lefort and Solenn Nuz.’

‘Madame Lefort and Madame Nuz?’

‘Yes, everyone.’

‘Then don’t forget the two Nuz daughters. And the father-in-law.’

‘True. And I want to know what plans Lefort ever actually officially submitted for developing the Glénan – if he did ever even submitted any? What is there at the council in terms of papers? Statements, appeals, we should check the files carefully. Also whether there were proposals for projects on the Glénan submitted by other people in the last ten years.’

‘I could take that on, chief.’

‘I want to keep you here.’

Dupin knew that sounded a bit odd.

‘I want the two of us to have in-depth conversations with everyone out here again. What were the three men’s relationships like exactly? I still need to know a lot more detail about who stuck by whom here, and and how. I’d like to have a precise picture of this world out here.’

‘I’ll do that.’

Dupin stood up.

‘Just a few more things, Monsieur le Commissaire. We haven’t been able to find out where Pajot was two evenings ago, nobody saw him. I suspect he was on his boat. By the way we now know when the three of them probably arrived on the Glénan. On Sunday around five o’clock in the evening, the Bénéteau attracted jealous glances, two boat-owners remember it. AndI finally spoke to Lucas Lefort’s current girlfriend this morning. It was a bit complicated to get hold of her. She works in Brest in a luxury ‘spa’. Salt therapy and things. Funny Daerlen, a Dutchwoman. She had already heard about everything obviously, she was astonishingly composed. They had only known each other two months. In fact, she had wanted to spend the weekend with Lucas Lefort, but he cancelled when the weather was so good. Just the day before, Thursday. So the three seem to have set out quite spontaneously.’

‘Funny Daerlen?’

‘Yes.’

‘No joke?’

‘No.’

So Muriel Lefort’s assessment of this ‘liaison’ seemed absolutely correct. Mademoiselle Daerlen hadn’t been a big part of her brother’s life. Still. Coincidences were possible.

‘She didn’t know of any conflicts Lucas had had recently. But it was probably just not the sort of relationship where that kind of thing is discussed. They last saw each other on Tuesday evening, in his house at the Sables Blancs. He seemed on top form then, she says. He told her about buying a loft in London.’

‘London?’

‘In South Kensington, Chelsea. It’s where the wealthy are buying property out of fear of the crisis. The French now too. – – – Disgusting.’

That was a harsh word, in Riwal’s view. Somehow well-planned ‘emigration’ didn’t fit with the picture that Dupin had gathered of Lucas Lefort. He didn’t seem to have been particularly systematic. Not very rational in his actions.

‘The mayor’s wife comes from London. She has a house in South Kensington.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘We happened to find that out at Du Marhallac’h’s questioning yesterday evening.’ Although he still said this in an off-hand way, Riwal’s voice then hardened: ‘If you have a residence in England, you don’t have to pay tax on a cent of your income here in France. Four hundred thousand French people “live” in London at this stage. France’s sixth largest city! Many of them make their money here and then squirrel it away there. Seriously disgusting.’

Even though Dupin could understand Riwal’s fury, he forced himself to return to the subject.

‘What connection could there be?’

‘None yet.’

‘Not so far anyway. Anything else of interest from – Funny, Riwal?’

‘No.’

‘I think I should speak to Madame Barrault.’

‘You wanted to eat something though, Monsieur le Commissaire.’

True. He desperately needed to eat something. And he needed a coffee.

‘I’ll just get myself a sandwich. – Riwal?’

‘Yes, Monsieur le Commissaire?’

‘Did you know that this place is just swarming with dolphins? We saw some just now.’

Dupin hadn’t planned to talk about them. Especially not so excitedly.

‘Yes, they like the Glénan. Shall I get you that sandwich, chief?’

‘No need. I’ll go myself. Maybe I’ll see Solenn Nuz.’

Dupin took a few steps towards the bar, turned around and came back again. Riwal was already standing.

‘Riwal, we’ll keep Le Menn’s disappearance to ourselves for the time being, for as long as possible.’

‘Good. If I have news, I’ll get in touch straight away.’

*   *   *

The bar was empty. All the customers were sitting outside in the splendid sunshine. The older daughter, Louann, was behind the counter, busy with some glasses, and smiled as Dupin came in.

‘My mother isn’t here.’

Dupin was amazed afresh every time – and almost shocked – at how similar the three women were.

‘Coffee and a sandwich, please.’

‘Cheese, ham? Or rillettes? We have mackerel, crab, spider crab and scallop rillettes.’

‘Scallop.’

‘Great.’

‘The coffee first.’

She smiled again and set to work. In the wonderful hissing of the coffee machine, Dupin’s mobile rang. It was Goulch.

‘We’ve retrieved the boat, Monsieur le Commissiare. It was easier than we thought. It is now in one of the dry docks in Concarneau,’ Goulch’s voice spiralled upwards a little: ‘The Bénéteau had a series of expensive special technological features built into it, a little high-tech arsenal – a sonar that goes far beyond normal sonars, a detector for metal on the seafloor and a laser underwater camera.’

Dupin started.

‘What?’

He was certain he knew what this meant, but somehow it had wrong-footed him.

‘One moment,’ he said.

Dupin left the bar and went back to the table where they had just been sitting. Riwal had already disappeared.

‘Do you think it was fitted out for treasure hunting?’

‘There is definitely special equipment for examining the seafloor – not just the immediate surface of the ground, the sonic waves from this sonar penetrate even two- or three-metre thick layers of sand. They’re expensive gadgets. Professional quality.’

‘Anything else?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘On the boat. Other evidence or things to note?’

‘Not so far. Everything is wet of course, in the stowage space too.’

‘Maps, map materials?’

‘It all works on digital maps. The navigation,’ Goulch stopped himself. ‘You mean maps that could have specific places in the sea marked on them?’

‘Yes.’

‘We haven’t found any as of yet. Lots of things definitely went missing too, got washed out of the boat in the accident. During the storm and the hours on the seafloor.’

‘Are boats like this equipped with a blackbox? Do we have a chance of seeing where they were at the weekend? Before they got to the Glénan?’

‘Only larger ships. – What we can do, although there there isn’t much chance it will work, is use the emergency frequency to radio everyone who is at sea in the area and ask whether someone saw the Bénéteau at the weekend. We’ll send the request to all newspapers and radio stations too.’

‘Do that, Goulch.’

Louann Nuz appeared in the doorway of the Quatre Vents and came over to him with the sandwich and the coffee, swiftly placing everything in front of him and disappearing again.

‘We’ll be in touch if there’s any news.’

‘Good.’

Dupin hung up.

He still wasn’t sure what to make of this new information. He felt like he was in an adventure novel. Like in a Tim and Struppi comic, which he always read if he couldn’t sleep. He loved Tim and Struppi. Might this cold-blooded triple murder be about treasure? An old shipwreck with gold, silver and jewels on board? Had the three of them been on the trail of a treasure and someone had found out about it? Or vice versa: had the three wanted to steal the treasure from somebody? As outlandish as it sounded – which didn’t mean much in Brittany anyway – it sounded realistic to Dupin right now.

He stood up abruptly, ran his right hand through his hair and placed it on the back of his neck, his forehead deeply creased, his head lowered. Whenever he took up this position, his inspectors were in the habit of keeping a safe distance as inconspicuously as possible.

He needed to get moving. To think. Dupin picked up the cup with his left hand, finished the coffee in one gulp, grabbed the sandwich and headed for the beach on the other side of the island.

He didn’t like this one bit. Three victims, who each seemed to have a minimum of half a dozen enemies and no fewer than four impressively big motives. They may have appeared somewhat outlandish in parts, but all contained enough dramatic potential for murder. The development of the sailing school and the fight about its ‘spirit’, an issue with a lot of money and conceptual values at stake. The tourist development of the Glénan, with as much money as high ideals at stake. Medimare’s license deals, which very likely involved huge sums too. And treasures on the seafloor, possibly worth millions.

Ridiculous. Yet they hadn’t found out anything that was actually viable down any of these avenues. And the case was getting bigger all the time: two missing persons now too. And an anonymous caller who might get in touch again – Dupin was secretly already waiting for it. He had never had a murder case to solve where there were so many motives.

Without thinking, Dupin had walked down the wooden planks to the beach and to the western tip of the island, which was less than a hundred metres away now, at high tide. He stood still. Right in front of a temporary-looking sign that someone had rammed firmly into the sand on a simple wooden stake. In the middle of nowhere. A hand was sketched on it, throwing a wine bottle into a stylised landscape. There was an oversized red cross through it. It took Dupin a moment to understand. It was a ‘don’t throw your waste away in the countryside’ warning, using the most common rubbish on the islands: an empty wine bottle.

On the left hand side lay one of the famous fields of narcissi that everyone talked about. Nolwenn talked about them too, very happily and at great length. They were at the heart of the regional pride of the Cournouaille (along with several hundred other things). At the beginning of the nineteenth century the pale yellow and creamy white, not even twenty-centimetre tall – Dupin had thought on Penfret last year: very unremarkable – narcissi had been classified for the first time an. In the hundred and fifty years that followed the botanical facts and genealogies had been hotly debated until it was confirmed: yes, of course, it was unique! They only existed here on the Glénan, it was a distinct narcissus species: the Glénan narcissus! After being under threat of extinction for a few centuries, on several islands protected meadows had been designated as strict nature reserves where the flowers flourished splendidly. Two hundred thousand individual flowers, protected by their own society: the Association for the Prosperity of the Glénan Narcissus. The locals were especially proud of the flowers’ ‘mysterious origins’. Apparently, nobody knew exactly where they came from, although it was agreed that the Phoenicians had brought them here as medicinal plants. Admittedly, ‘mysterious origins’ were more interesting. And more Breton. At the end of April or beginning of May, they bloomed for three or four weeks, forming yellow-white fields – impressive in their abundance, Dupin had to admit. Unlike the nondescript individual little plants.

Dupin bit into his sandwich. He might almost have forgotten it again. And carried the baguette around the whole time like yesterday, until he’d felt stupid and dropped it discreetly into the waves. Which had proved to be incredibly careless: because the one seagull (a great black-backed seagull to boot) that had been on the spot and pounced on the sandwich a moment later, had turned into a swarm of gulls within seconds, flapping excitedly, screeching, aggressive. Dupin swiftly took to his heels.

*   *   *

Anjela Barrault’s suit was opal blue, skin-tight with a metallic sheen. Dupin had never seen a wet suit like it, the long neoprene arms blended seamlessly into the gloves. Only her head was uncovered, the headpiece pulled down and snug around her neck like a poloneck. Around her hips she wore a wide, black belt with several large and small karabiners. Anjela Barrault was not tall and was clearly delicate despite the suit. Her mid-length, wildly tousled hair was different tones and shades of blonde, every strand different, from dark honey blonde to a cool, ashy, Scandinavian blonde.

Dupin was slightly embarrassed, he thought he had looked her in the eye too long and too hard when they had met. Her eyes had looked exactly the same colour and the same dazzling lustre as the wet suit. She was tanned. A mischievous, yet absolutely sincere smile was on her face. She was approximately early forties and insanely attractive. Dupin had resorted to fixing his gaze on the hair at the side of her face. This way, he wasn’t rude, he wasn’t looking past her and he didn’t run the risk of falling under the spell of her eyes again.

‘As I said, come with me.’

Dupin couldn’t think of a suitable reply. He had been resolute in deciding that he’d had enough boats for one day – for the whole case in fact. For the whole year.

‘I…’

‘Just hand me the bottle.’

The Bakounine, an old fishing boat, was at the end of the long quay, moored in a makeshift way, the bottom half painted a vibrant orangey red, the top half in an equally vibrant light blue. Those were the Breton primary colours that Dupin loved so much: yellow, green, red, blue, everything in rich, warm tones.

Anjela Barrault stood on the boat, which only rocked slightly here in the chamber. Now, at high tide, the deck was at almost the same height as the quay where Dupin stood. Next to him lay a pile of equipment. Wetsuits, weight belts, flippers, masks. And a blue bottle which may not have matched the shade of the wetsuit exactly but came incredibly close. Dupin stooped down and, impressed by its weight, cautiously handed it down to her. There was just a small gap between the quay and the Bakounine, between him and the head of the diving centre. But it was two metres deep, the Atlantic lapping below.

‘And the other things?’

‘Those are for the second boat,’ she pointed to a boat at one of the buoys near the quay. ‘We have several.’

Dupin still had no idea what to say or do.

‘I have to do my rounds. Collect people and bring them to Penfret. So come on.’

Without thinking, Dupin jumped. Anjela Barrault hadn’t even waited, she simply untied the two ropes with a few quick movements and proceeded to the wheelhouse with its colossal helm.

‘You’re going to have to come closer, otherwise we won’t understand a word each other is saying.’

Before Dupin could reply, there was a violent vibrating and the menacing sound of a heavy diesel motor starting up. Fountains of water spurted out of the two emission pipes and onto the stern. Dupin was already regretting his reckless leap onto the boat. The Bakounine puttered away from the quay in reverse. Dupin approached the wheelhouse uncertainly, the ship’s vibrations spreading through his body. He felt a bit embarrassed as he eased himself into the narrow wheelhouse with Madame Barrault. The way she wore it, a suit had very little in common with clothes, in his opinion.

‘So you’ve got to deal with the whole lot of us here now. With us strange beings on this magical archipelago.’

She had pronounced the ‘magical’ with pointed irony. Dupin had only just managed to make it out, although he was standing very close to her, right in the narrow doorframe in which he’d wedged himself with his elbows.

‘I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes, Monsieur le Commissaire.’

He couldn’t help but smile. Which did him good.

Anjela Barrault was concentrating on putting the boat into drive, which seemed to be giving her some trouble. She gave the helm a hefty smack.

‘I love this boat really, but it’s really getting on in years.’

Dupin urged himself to concentrate.

‘And what do you mean by “strange”, Madame Barrault?’

‘Oh I mean a lot by that. It’s a crazy scrap of earth. The most beautiful I know. But tough. Extremely tough. You’re far away from the world here. Far from civilisation. The eighteen kilometres between it and the mainland, the smooth sea today, the mobile reception in this weather, that you can get a coffee here, wine, something to eat – all of that is misleading. It’s not a real place – when you’re here, you’re at sea.’

Anjela Barrault sounded like Leussot had earlier, thought Dupin. He had used very similar expressions. But everyone here did that when it came to the islands and themselves.

‘And that makes people strange?’

‘Without doubt. But, you already have to be slightly strange to come here in the first place. You don’t come here without a reason.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

Anjela Barrault shrugged. ‘Everyone has their stories here. Their experiences. Their missions. A reason why they’re here and not in a more comfortable place.’

‘And – could all of this lead to a murder?’

‘No, in fact. Things must have gone really wrong. In fact, people’s life-paths rarely cross here, even though superficially it looks like they do. In principle, everyone lives their own life, side by side. We don’t know much about each other. Often nothing at all about the crucial things. Do you understand?’

This was something Dupin understood surprisingly well, although it was expressed rather unconventionally. It corresponded exactly with his observations.

‘Are you hinting at something specific that happened here? At something that you know, or witnessed? Or suspect?’

‘No.’

The ‘no’ had been clear and firm.

‘Did you know all three dead men personally?’

‘I’ve never met Pajot. Konan, I know only to see. He came with Lefort.’

‘And Lefort?’

‘An idiot. Never interested me.’

For some reason the boat had listed hard to port side for a moment. Dupin lost his footing briefly, Anjela Barrault held him firmly by the shoulder. He recovered.

‘You never came in contact with him?’

‘Never. We didn’t even speak to each other. Just said hello.’

Dupin wedged himself more firmly than before in the doorway. It must have looked bizarre.

‘Do you know what discovery the three were on the trail of?’

That had been more abrupt than Dupin had intended. Anjela Barault’s brow furrowed. She understood immediately.

‘There’s a lot of money at stake with some of these finds. You should take it seriously. Lots of people here take it seriously.’

‘Do you know of anything specific?’

She burst out laughing.

‘Then I’d have been involved myself.’

Dupin was intrigued to know what the furrowed brow just now had meant.

‘You – are a treasure-hunter?’

‘I’m a free diver. And diving instructor. Head of the diving centre. We have fifteen employees, twelve more in the summer, it’s a very large operation.’

‘Not on the hunt for treasure?’

‘Maybe I will happen to find something some time.’ She burst out laughing again.

Dupin had been concentrating so hard on the conversation and on staying upright that he had only just noticed they were barely fifty metres away from the island now. He looked around.

‘Drénec. We’re going to take a group of diving students on board here, then on to Cigogne. Do you see the old restored farmhouse made of stone?’ She pointed in the direction of the island with her head.

‘It belongs to the sailing school too. Even Drénec was inhabited once and the island is not really that big. People kept on trying, but they never stayed long.’

Anjela Barrault cut back the speed. Dupin now saw a small group of perhaps six or eight people, who were expecting them.

‘During the really severe spring tides you can walk here from Saint-Nicolas.’

Dupin looked at the water in amazement. And at Saint-Nicolas. He still had not got used to the fact that the whole water and land issue out here was very unstable and unclear. At the moment, everything between here and Saint-Nicolas looked like nothing but Atlantic.

‘With enormously high coefficients of over 115, you can nearly always hike across the whole chamber.’

That was an incredible thought. Dupin fished the Petit Indicateur des Marées out of his pocket to check when that would next be the case. He just saw a mass of numbers and understood nothing.

‘In the last four decades that has only occurred twelve times. The spring tide yesterday only reached 107.’

‘I see.’

‘By the way there is a shipwreck up ahead, not deep, you can see it from the boat. A majestic ship. A large Greek brig, the Pangolas Siosif. Everyone drowned. 1883.’

Dupin almost have cried out ‘where?’

‘They wanted to take refuge here in a storm. It was that which proved to be their undoing. That’s the Glénan for you. It has happened to so many people. Did you know that the souls and ghosts of the drowned have been gathering in the Baie de Trépassés since time immemorial, the “Bay of the Deceased”? And once a year, on all souls’ day, they dart over the crests of the waves as fleeting sea spray. White flecks. Even far away from the bay you can hear the ghastly cries.’

Dupin hadn’t known this. But it was a good story.

As she spoke, Anjela Barrault had kept her eyes fixed on a particular point ahead of her. Now she began to turn the boat. They were only fifteen metres away from the beach that looked Caribbean here too.

‘We can continue our conversation very soon. This won’t take long.’

Dupin cautiously loosened his grip on the doorframe and groped his way to the railing.

‘I have to make a few calls.’

‘Go up to the front, it’s not quite as loud there.’

The engine was idling, the water splashing out through the expel pipe.

Anjela Barrault went to the stern and opened up a sort of hatch in the railing with skilful movements. The group of divers had already come over.

Dupin positioned himself in the tapering point of the bow. Behind him lay the bleak, not very large (at high tide) Quignénec and the two little neighbouring islands that closed off the chamber in a south-easterly direction; in front of him, a breathtaking panorama of the whole archipelago. He took out his phone.

‘Riwal?’

‘I just tried you, chief, you had no reception again. Where are you?’

‘Has Le Menn turned up?’

‘No.’

‘What about the manhunt?’

‘The personal description has already gone out on all radio stations. We’re pulling out all the stops. We’ve already spoken to his wife and had her tell us everything. Every ritual. Where he usually gets petrol, drinks coffee, buys his newspapers, everything … Bellec and a colleague are out checking those places right now.’

‘And his contact with the three dead men?’

‘His wife confirmed that he was Lefort’s doctor. And that she remembers him being out with Lefort three or four times in the last year. The last time was at the Transat Concarneau. On the day of the regatta opening. In April.’

Dupin remembered it – especially because he couldn’t find a parking place for days yet again – it was one of the big festivals in the town. Not as large or significant as the Festival des Filets Bleus, but still very big. In the days before the regatta opening, the town was one big fairground with colourful stands and stalls. All of the boats taking part were at the quays, the teams were introduced on signs – great heroes. Hundreds of little pennants adorned the streets of the town centre. You could feel the good mood. It was one of the toughest regattas in the world – from Concarneau, straight across the entire Atlantic to Saint-Barth; the special thing was that all participants were in the exact same boats, there was no advantage in resources, Riwal explained it in detail again every time, extensively: a Figaro Bénéteau.

‘But his wife doesn’t think they were really friends. In fact, sometimes he even distanced himself from Lefort.’

‘In what way?’

‘He didn’t approve of Lefort’s behaviour towards women. And recently they were in disagreement when it came to Lefort’s new Glénan plans, his wife recalls.’

Interesting. Apparently nobody knew the plans apart from the town council, yet everyone was talking about them.

‘Did he have knowledge of these plans?’

‘His wife thinks he did, Lefort told him about them a few months ago, apparently.’

‘And what exactly did he tell him?’

‘She didn’t know that.’

‘And why was her husband against them?’

‘She just knows that he considers them dubious from an ecological point of view.’

‘And his relationships with Konan and Pajot?’

‘She couldn’t say whether he knew Konan and Pajot. If he did, then not well in any case. She said her husband has been very agitated since yesterday. She assumed it was due to the news of Lefort’s death.’

‘Agitated in what way?’

‘He wasn’t speaking much, she says, he kept standing up and walking around. Yesterday evening he tried to call someone many times, but he didn’t get through. His wife didn’t know who it was. Apparently, he was up extremely early today. At six o’clock. An hour earlier than usual.’

‘Hmmm.’

‘Anything else?’

‘No.’

‘I want to know who Le Menn has been on the phone to recently, we need the phone records for all of his lines.’

‘We’ll need to claim that there is danger in delay on this one too. Otherwise we won’t get it at this stage,’ said Riwal.

‘Danger in delay, Riwal. Absolutely.’

‘Good. I’ve just received the report on the search of the three men’s houses too. And the boats by the way. Nothing of note has been discovered yet. But we’ve removed all of their computer hard drives, we’re analysing them now.’

‘And nothing on the boats? Maps, nautical maps? Nothing remarkable?’

‘No. Are we looking for anything in particular?’

‘Tell them I want to see all nautical maps if they find any. I want to know whether one, two or all three went repeatedly to particular coordinates at sea recently. No idea how we are meant to find that out. We’ll need some luck.’

‘Everyone navigates electronically these days…’

‘I’m up to speed.’

‘You’re genuinely thinking about a treasure hunt?’

‘I’m thinking about everything that seems possible and impossible.’

‘If there’s a sunken ship involved, which the three men discovered, and if nobody was meant to know anything about it, then they will have been extremely careful.’

A loud bang made Dupin jump. Anjela Barrault had slammed the hatch in the railing shut and was already on her way back to the wheelhouse. There was a considerable hustle and bustle at the stern, the divers were in the process of stowing their things underneath the narrow wooden seats.

‘I’ll be in touch again very soon, Riwal. I’m on Drénec.’

‘What are you doing on Drénec? Did you not want to speak to Anjela Barrault?’

‘I’m on her boat.’

‘You’re on a boat again?’

‘I’ll be in touch, Riwal.’

Dupin had almost hung up.

‘Wait.’

‘Chief?’

‘Has Kadeg found outanything about this dispute between the former mayor and Konan, regarding salvaging rights?’

‘Bellec made enquiries at the mairie. No documents about any kind of incident were found. And even Monsieur Tanguy didn’t know what Muriel Lefort might have meant by that story.’

Dupin sighed deeply.

‘Speak to you later, Riwal.’

The diesel engine ramped back up, the low vibrations began again, Anjela Barrault put it into gear and the boat slowly, then more and more clearly, picked up speed.

Dupin groped his way back to the wheelhouse.

‘Did you get reception?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s always the luck of the draw out here.’

‘What do you know about the business links between Medimare and the Institut Marine, Madame Barrault? About conflicts that Leussot and other researchers have with the institute?’

‘Nothing really. Just that Leussot and Lefort got into a fight once and it was about that amongst other things. And that the Director of the institute is a nasty character.’

‘A fight? Leussot was in a fight with Lefort? An actual, violent altercation?’

‘In front of the Quatre Vents. About a year ago. Alcohol was probably involved. But that’s as much as I know.’

Her gaze seemed more mischievous to Dupin than before.

‘Ask Solenn Nuz.’

‘Why her?’

‘She knows – the most.’

‘And this is generally known? This issue of the fight?’

Nobody had mentioned it yet. Everyone out here only seemed to say what suited them in their respective situations.

‘I’d say so.’

Dupin again pondered how he could manage to make notes in this position, he needed both arms for stability. He gave up.

‘What’s your relationship to Monsieur Leussot?’

The question did not seem unwelcome in the slightest.

‘Let’s put it this way: it was once – clearer, but it hasn’t been like that for a long time. We’re friends. Most of the time, anyway.’

‘I see. Is Leussot also a treasure hunter?’

‘Even he definitely takes a look, if something is lying on the seafloor. He’s always out on the Atlantic. He has the best of everything when it comes to equipment. The latest technology. Even if it has other functions. Nobody can record the seafloor as precisely as he can.’

Dupin hadn’t thought of that but it made sense.

‘Is that his boat he goes out in?’

‘No, it belongs to the institute. But he’s been using it all the time recently.’

‘Do you know it?’

‘I’ve never been on it. But Tanguy has, the two of them know each other well.’

Dupin’s mobile rang and he took it out with his left hand. He looked at the number, taking great care not to relax his wedged-in elbows. He knew the number from yesterday or today, but couldn’t place it.

‘Excuse me.’

Now he did ease out of his safety position, walking cautiously to the bow.

‘Hello?’

‘Muriel Lefort here. Can you hear me, Monsieur le Commissaire?’

‘I can hear you, Madame Lefort.’

‘Where are you? It’s terribly loud where you are, I can hardly make out what you’re saying.’

‘I’m investigating right now.’

The boat bobbed strangely to and fro, in quick, short movements. For no apparent reason – nothing could be detected at sea which could explain this. It was extremely surprising how diverse and perfectly distinct the unpleasant movements of a boat could be; by this point, Dupin felt he was in a position to formulate a small typology of these movements: there was a rocking, a teetering, a bobbing, swerving, swaying, lurching, wavering …

‘There are some – things I’d like to discuss with you in person.’

‘Same here. It would be best if I came by later. I’ll call you again.’

He desperately needed a coffee. Especially after this second adventure at sea.

‘Great. Then I’ll expect your call.’

Dupin hesitated for a moment.

‘Madame Lefort. I have one quick question. Do you happen to know whether your brother was out at sea particularly often recently?’

‘He was always out at sea a lot.’

‘I mean…’

‘You mean was he hunting for treasure?’

‘Yes, that’s exactly it.’

‘People are saying you think that’s a possibility.’

Dupin wanted to ask who was saying what, but left it.

‘We are looking into all possibilities.’

‘As I said: Lucas has been dreaming about treasure since we were children. Oh God. But I’m not able to give you an answer. I would definitely be the last person he’d have told.’

‘I understand. See you later then.’

She had hung up.

At the same moment, Dupin’s phone rang again. He took it away from his ear and glanced quickly at the number. Nolwenn.

‘Yes?’

‘The Prefect wanted to have it confirmed personally by you that the large manhunt operation for Le Menn is of “extraordinary relevance”. I’ve explicitly confirmed everything. You should just know that that’s why I called you. An hour ago.’

‘I … good.’

‘Are you making progress?’

‘I don’t know. There are lots of figures involved.’

‘You don’t have to drink the whole sea, even in this case.’

Nolwenn’s untiring use of Breton sayings always reassured him – and he was very happy to hear Nolwenn’s voice anyway (and, of course, to know that he didn’t need to drink the whole sea).

‘Do we have access to the three men’s accounts? It’s important.’

‘I think we will very soon. You’re quite difficult to understand, Monsieur le Commissaire, where are you right now?’

‘On a boat, with Anjela Barrault.’

‘You poor thing, on a boat, yet again?’

‘Exactly.’

Dupin was now deeply regretting that everyone knew about his little boat phobia.

‘Last week there was a big article about Anjela Barrault in the Télégramme. She is planning to win back the world championship title this summer.’

‘The world championship title?’

The mobile was clamped to his ear again.

‘She is a freediver. She has already dived the deepest twice. No other woman has reached a greater depth,’ Nolwenn broke off briefly. ‘You know what a freediver is?’

‘Possibly. A kind of – diver.’

Anjela Barrault had mentioned it herself, but Dupin could not in all honesty have said any more than that.

‘Diving without oxygen tanks, as deep as possible. A tough sport.’

Dupin had vaguely heard of it.

‘And she is the world champion? Anjela Barrault?’

‘A Breton woman. She was a yoga teacher actually. A very attractive woman. Absolutely stunning. She wants to make it to the hundred-metre mark in the summer.’

‘A hundred metres?’

‘A Breton woman. She will manage it.’

‘I see. Nolwenn?’

‘Yes, Monsieur le Commissaire?’

‘On the boat this lunchtime … we saw dolphins.’

Dupin didn’t know how he was getting onto this subject now, which had no place here. It was probably because of the diving.

‘Interesting animals. But be careful.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Do you not remember Jean Floch? The dolphin who deliberately tore fishing nets and attacked and sank rowing boats, so that the anglers were tossed into the sea? Four years ago, you were still in the capital then, but it went national across all the media. An aggressive maverick, spreading anxiety and fear along the Breton coast. Like a rabid dog. Three hundred kilograms!’

That sounded brutal. Dupin had always had a different impression of dolphins.

‘A miracle that he didn’t leave any widows or orphans behind. Swimming bans were imposed everywhere in southern Finistère. Then they drove him away with noise. Yes, sexually mature males can sometimes display extreme dominant behaviour and are excluded from the group.’

‘They were all very clearly in the group. I mean: it was most definitely a group, not a single animal.’

Dupin had also wanted to say that the aggressive male was certainly the absolute exception and that overall they were peaceable creatures. After all, that was the very thing that they were famous for of all things – but then he left it. This was an absurd conversation in any case.

‘Okay. Then let’s speak later, Monsieur le Commissaire.’

Nolwenn sounded fully composed.

‘Let’s.’

She hung up.

Dupin stayed stock still. This was a crazy case. Not just the case itself. Everything.

*   *   *

The Bakounine had now come within fifty metres of Cigogne – the island in the middle of the chamber. The fortress, more or less round for the most part, could already clearly be made out. The legendary Fort Cigogne had a pointed, sharp bend in seven places, which is where it got its name (‘seiz kogn’, seven corners in Breton). Now it was used by the sailing school. Corsairs that had found perfect cover on the Glénan were chased out of here in earlier times. The worst of them came from the English island of Guernsey, of course. It was regarded as fact that there were hidden chambers and vaults both in and underneath the fort. Corridors suddenly ending in nothing. People spoke about widely branching secret tunnels underneath the seafloor that you could get to all of the islands through. Seeing the dark, atmospheric fortress, you believed it straight away.

It occurred to Dupin that he hadn’t even enquired what ‘doing the rounds’ meant earlier. There were quite a lot of islands.

The dark band of cloud had pushed closer, it was deep black by now and much wider. That didn’t mean anything in Brittany. Even so, Dupin had to admit that he wouldn’t have suspected a few hours ago that it would move in their direction at all. You still couldn’t class it as proper wind, but the weak draught that was palpable again this afternoon was clearly coming from the opposite direction, from the east. Dupin relaxed. A moment later he was standing in the wheelhouse again. Anjela Barrault greeted him with her bewitching laugh.

‘This is an amusing investigation. The way you work, I mean.’

‘I … you and Solenn Nuz are friends, I’ve been told.’

‘Very old friends. We went to primary school together. Loctudy.’

‘And how did you come to the islands and to this job?’

‘You want to hear my story?’

She seemed genuinely astonished for the first time.

‘I do.’

‘After the death of her husband, Solenn Nuz considered buying the diving school. Lefort wanted to take it over. He made a very impressive offer. Likewise Muriel Lefort. She even outbid her brother. I was an amateur diver at the time, a yoga teacher really and before that I had been in Kathmandu for two years. When I came back, I happened to run into Solenn. We arranged to meet. Then she told me about her situation, made me an offer and, in a pub, at two in the morning, I said I’d do it. My then boyfriend had found someone else while I was away and my parents had died shortly before. The way it always is: everything happens at once. Life is chaos, more muddled than a ball of wool.’

Dupin liked the image of the ball of wool. It was very true, he thought.

‘That is my story in one minute.’

This was expressed without sorrow, without flirtation.

‘And then you become a world-class free diver?’

‘Believe me. Strictly speaking, it’s just a different form of yoga.’

She throttled the engine. They had arrived at her next stop. A small group was waiting on the beach again, this time there were just three divers.

‘Just these ones and then off to Penfret. Have you done yoga before?’

Dupin had nothing against yoga, nothing at all, but he was certain that he was the most unsuited person in the whole world when it came to that kind of thing. Yoga, meditation, self-hypnosis, all relaxation techniques. He got nervous just hearing the words. Nobody could be less talented in matters of conscious relaxation. He deliberately ignored the question.

‘So Madame Lefort had made Solenn Nuz a very high offer for the diving school?’

Muriel Lefort was more business-minded than he’d thought.

‘Yes. She was really serious about it. By the way, since you’re so interested in sunken ships: on this side of Cigogne alone there are four, all pirate ships. Immense treasures were found in the wreck of the Double Revanche in the thirties. It was buried deep in the sand, amid dozens of lobsters. The lobsters love the wrecks of the old wooden ships. Did you know that the Glénan have a mascot? A lobster, Charlie, over eighty years old. He lives in a wreck not far from the quay on Saint-Nicolas. Everyone knows him. The club set up signs under water at his favourite spots to sit. Every diving newbie has to pay him their respects once.’

She laughed.

‘Charlie. There are some videos online,’ in more of a scholarly tone she added: ‘Lobsters are completely sedentary. A one-hundred-and-forty-year-old lobster was saved from the pot at the last minute recently – it was almost a metre long.’

With a powerful swing, Anjela Barrault turned the steering wheel right around and set the boat to idle. She looked expectantly to Dupin, who took a moment to realise – he was in the way. She wanted to get to the stern of the boat.

‘The same procedure as just now.’

Dupin stepped aside and headed for the prow again. He was still occupied by the idea of the one-metre long and one-hundred-and-forty-year-old lobster: so it had been born around 1870, Charlie in at least the 1930s – he was older than Dupin’s mother. He was anxious to keep it all abstract. He liked the taste of lobster too much.

His mobile had slid deep into his trouser pocket again. He dialled Goulch’s number. The young police officer was on the line immediately.

‘Monsieur le Commissaire?’

‘Where are you?’

‘Still in the docks, at the examination of the Bénéteau. But we’ll be done very soon. We’ve also been able to save map stuff. Ordinary nautical maps, laminated paper. We’ll take a good look at them. We haven’t been able to find any markings yet.’

‘I need you. Go to Monsieur Leussot’s boat. He’s probably still somewhere near the Moutons, or already on Saint-Nicolas. Take a look at his ship, check what technical equipment and technology he owns which would be suitable for hunting for treasure. And see if you see something that definitely indicates that he’s actively – how to phrase this – on a hunt.’

‘A proper search, am I understanding you correctly?’

‘If need be.’

Even though this way of going about things had – like all the other actions today, in Dupin’s opinion – something of a stabbing in the dark quality to it, he wanted to know now. And: even stabbing in the dark could be very effective. So long as he was not stabbing in the wrong direction entirely.

‘And then look at Kilian Tanguy, Muriel Lefort and Du Marhallac’h’s boats. And the one belonging to the doctor who disappeared, Devan Le Menn. Have I forgotten someone?’

‘The Director of the institute? Anjela Barrault?’

‘Anjela Barrault?’

‘The head of the…’

‘I know who she is.’

‘She has her own boat too. She often uses it for the diving school.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Everyone who is constantly out on the water here knows each other, at least to some extent. They know of each other.’

‘I’ll take care of that, about Anjela Barrault’s boat. I’m having a conversation with her right now.’

‘Are you on her boat at the moment?’

If he were honest, he had no idea if it was her boat.

‘What kind of boat does she have? What does it look like?’

‘A Jeanneau, Cap Camarat, open-topped, maybe seven metres long, an old model, but in good condition, white, recently repainted.’

‘Then I’m not on her boat. – So inspect her boat too.’

‘Good. I’ll head out immediately.’

‘And yes – the Director’s boat should definitely be searched. And ask around about whether anyone knows of – treasure-hunting activity on the coast here.’

‘Madame Barrault would definitely be best placed to know that. Or one of the archaeologists. Or Solenn Nuz.’

‘Get in touch if you’ve got something.’

‘Will do, Monsieur le Commissaire.’

Dupin hung up. And took a few deep breaths. It was astonishing, the air smelled and tasted even ‘oceanier’ today: salt, iodine, magnesium, iron, calcium – and algae. Dupin grinned to himself, he was reminded inevitably of Nolwenn: the health, oh no, the medicinal quality of the Atlantic air was among her favourite topics. ‘Like a permanent saltwater bath. The nervous and muscular systems relax, blockages and internal clamps are loosened,’ she liked to say. Dupin particularly liked that internal clamps stuff, even though he had no clear idea of what it meant. Of course people ascribed more ‘banal’ effects to the Atlantic air in general, like the detoxification of the organism, the harmonisation of the metabolism and various healing effects. In the initial period of his ‘transfer’ it had all seemed like esotericism or druidic healing rituals. But then he had done some research and been very impressed. The proportions of the individual components of the sea in fact corresponded almost exactly with how they were present in the blood and in the tissue fluid in the human body.

When Dupin turned round, he saw that Anjela Barrault was already closing the hatch. The loud bang followed and again she left the divers to their own devices, already making her way back to the wheelhouse.

‘Now we’ll drop them all off on Penfret. Our spartan accommodation is there.’

A moment later she was standing at the the helm again. And Dupin was in the opening of the wheelhouse once more.

‘Are we going back to Saint-Nicolas afterwards?’

Anjela glanced at her impressive diving watch, which she wore over the sleeve of her suit.

‘We should be at the quay around five p.m. And then maybe you’d like to go out with me again?’

‘You’re going out again?’

‘The sun only goes down at nine. These are my hours.’

She smiled warmly.

‘Are you going to be out in your boat?’

She wasn’t in the least bit put out by Dupin’s question.

‘No, I’m staying on the Bakounine. I would only be wasting time. I just let them out at the quay and keep going.’ Without changing her tone she added:

‘You’re well informed.’

‘That’s my job.’

‘I’m sure you’ll want to know whether my boat is suitable for hunting for treasure?’

‘Indeed.’

‘I have a perfectly normal sonar, but a hideously expensive underwater camera, the latest model. It’s crazy. It’s five times better than normal cameras. My assistants film me with it when I’m training. But you can only see what the camera lets you see. Things on the sand. On the seafloor. Do you want to look at it?’

‘I think that’s enough for the time being. It’s possible a police officer will still want to take a look at the boat.’

‘You really think that these murders are about treasure?’

‘We’ll see.’

‘Did you always want to be a police officer?’

Anjela Barrault had asked this question in the same mild tone of voice that she had been using the whole time.

‘I think so, although I never used to think about it. My father was a police officer. He died when I was six.’

Dupin had answered without thinking and was surprised he’d done so. It wasn’t his way, talking about himself. Especially not on a case.

‘What do you think happened here on the islands, Madame Barrault?’

Dupin was trying hard for a serious tone.

‘Maybe it didn’t happen on the islands at all.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Maybe it involved things from the outside that have nothing to do with the people here. Perhaps it was a coincidence that this was where it happened.’

Dupin found this answer only marginally more comprehensible than the first one.

‘Specifically?’

‘I don’t know. They must be terrible things. So much destruction.’

Dupin needed to bring the conversation back down to earth a little.

‘And Lefort’s tourist plans?’

Anjela Barrault laughed scornfully. More mischievously scornful than he would have thought her capable.

‘Oh yes. His great plans. His great playground.’

‘Do you know the new plans?’

‘Nobody knows them yet. Except the amorphous bureaucrats from Fouesnant. I don’t even believe in any new plans. They’re always the same ones.’

‘The mayor?’

‘The mayor.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘About what exactly?’

‘How do you view the idea of expanding the sailing school, the diving school – and tourism on the Glénan?’

‘It’s a big joke. A terrifying joke at the same time. I would rather the islands got swallowed up by the Atlantic. Which will happen very soon anyway, if the sea level keeps going up. This little bit of stone and sand.’

‘You don’t think that it can be carried out in an ecological way?’

‘Bullshit.’

Anjela Barrault made no move to answer in more detail. She turned her head and looked Dupin firmly, almost sternly, in the eye. A moment later she looked ahead intently again. They had arrived at their destination. Penfret. They were right at the ‘whale skeleton’, the massive, still fully intact wooden frame of a mighty old ship that had run aground here, whose planks had decayed little by little, but whose solid wooden scaffolding still towered up out of the sand. Dupin knew it from last year.

As the divers got out, he let his gaze sweep over the island. The basic accommodation was visible, scattered far apart, low wooden cabins. They stood in close squares of four, there were perhaps twenty in total. They extended from the beach to the middle of the island where the ruins of the old farmhouses from the nineteenth century stood, which Henri had showed him last year. They were in fact absolutely normal houses, Dupin thought. To the right of the farmhouses stood two taller, two-storey wooden cabins. This was where the temporary canteens and bars, as well as the entertainment rooms were. Youth hostels were luxurious in comparison, Dupin had been impressed. The island was towered over by the famous white-painted lighthouse with the glowing red glass whose 175th birthday had been celebrated last year, by decorating it with festive bunting. It rose up out of the roof of a large stone house where the lighthouse keepers had lived with their families in days gone by. Nolwenn had told him some of the tragic stories that had grown up around the lighthouse. Only one had stayed with Dupin. And still gave Dupin a slight shiver. One day the glasshouse’s red light shattered in a blustery storm and a new one had been installed in a huge rush to avoid accidents, but only white glass had been available. In the weeks that followed, four ships full of people had capsized on the archipelago. People had thought the lighthouse’s white light was the lighthouse on Penmarc’h and during the night or in bad weather, navigation had gone terribly wrong. Hundreds of people had died. A terrible story.

Voices could be heard from the stern. He heard Anjela Barrault saying ‘see you tomorrow’ many times. It sounded warm each time.

Dupin felt dizzy. He probably had for a while now, but he had been distracted during the journey. For a moment he was so dizzy he was afraid he would lose his balance. Or stumble, fall. The boat was bobbing, but Dupin’s feeling went far beyond than that. The sea itself seemed to be swaying. A great, sweeping swaying. He had instinctively taken hold of the railing with both hands and was holding on with all his strength. He tried to keep his gaze riveted on a fixed point on the island.

But what gave him a shock yet again was: the bang when Anjela Barrault slammed the hatch in the railing shut, clearly with even more force than before. It sounded like a gunshot. Dupin jumped. Yet the small fright helped him more than deep breathing.

He needed to distract himself.

Dupin went back to the wheelhouse. The boat was picking up speed, the vibrations going right through him, making his bones resonate right down to smallest one.

‘What else do you want to know? We’ll be at Saint-Nicolas any moment.’

As though to prove it she ramped up the engine to the maximum, along with the noise and vibration.

‘That Sunday evening in the Quatre Vents – do you remember what time you arrived?’

‘Your inspector has already asked me that too. Quarter to nine.’

‘And did anything unusual strike you then? At about this time, someone was presumably slipping the sedative to Lefort and Konan.’

‘I was sitting at the bar. I didn’t even notice them properly. Most of the time I was talking to Solenn’s older daughter. We get on very well. And to Solenn’s father-in-law, Pascal.’

Dupin had clean forgotten him.

‘He doesn’t talk much.’

‘No.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘About a few strange currents there have been recently.’

‘Strange currents?’

‘Yes, oddly strong currents right at the western and southern exits from the chamber that immediately try and drag you southwards to the open sea. Now that it’s spring tide. We’re familiar with currents like these at coefficients of 120, but always towards the land. Now suddenly they’re tugging you towards the open sea.’

‘So you didn’t particularly notice anything that evening?’

‘No.’

‘Who else was at the bar?’

‘Oh God, it’s always chaos there. Maela Menez. She’s tough. But wonderful. I like her. I think a few diving students too. Louann Nuz. Armelle Nuz. I stayed a long time. Most people left before the storm got going. I don’t like to be alone in thunderstorms like that,’ this was very confidently expressed. ‘Later, I sat by myself, most of the time.’

‘The two Nuz daughters state you were already there around quarter past eight.’

Something flickered in her eyes for a brief moment.

‘This is like an old crime novel. Poisoned drinks, a group of strange folks stranded on an island.’

Dupin looked intently at her.

‘Then the two of them were simply mistaken. I can’t tell you any more than that.’

‘What do you mean by “Madame Menez is tough”?’

‘Relentless. Unyielding. She has completely internalised the old values of the sailing school. She marches fearlessly into every battle for them. But with an open visor. She works day and night.’

‘Which battles?’

‘The one with Lefort for instance.’

It all sounded a bit vague to Dupin’s ears, he wasn’t sure if that was intentional.

‘She shows the feelings that Muriel Lefort holds back. Muriel is always composed.’

‘What feelings are these?’

‘Hate. They are familiar with that.’

‘You mean she truly hated Lucas Lefort?’

‘It was no secret.’

‘How close are you to Muriel Lefort?’

‘We get on well. Even if you couldn’t say that we are friends. We women have to stick together out here. Solenn, Muriel and I. Muriel represents something big. She takes it seriously.’

‘And Muriel hated her brother too?’

‘Deeply. She always wanted to buy him out – and he wanted to buy her out. Both of them thought: at some point the other one will give in. Only Muriel suffered. He had his fun. And trampled on all that was sacred to her.’

‘Do you know of a man in her life?’

Dupin himself didn’t know how he’d got onto this topic.

‘No. The women here live without men. Without fixed men. We’re almost there by the way.’

He looked ahead. The quay was in fact not much further.

‘I wanted…’

Dupin heard his mobile amongst the loud engine noise as though it was coming from far away. He dared to relax his wedged position in the door. It was Riwal.

‘They’ve found Le Menn’s car, chief.’

‘Where?’

‘In the big car park in Sainte-Marine, at the harbour, not very far from his house. His boat is missing. He owns a Merry Fisher by Jeanneau, nine metres twenty-five, a popular boat here on the coast.’

Inspector Riwal was – of course – a boat expert too. Along with his ‘druidic’ streak, he also had a practical and very well-developed interest in technology.

‘So he’s out in his boat?’

‘Looks like it. So shall we call off the manhunt?’

‘No. We don’t have Le Menn yet.’

‘But he’s at sea.’

‘Let’s wait it out, Riwal. It could be a different story. Perhaps he’s trying to trick us. Maybe he has gone ashore somewhere else. In Fouesnant or Concarneau. Or he went up the Odet and left his boat behind there. If he were on the run, that wouldn’t be implausible.’

‘You’re right,’ Riwal’s pondering was almost audible. ‘So you definitely suspect Le Menn then?’

‘I suspect everyone right now. Especially if someone was at the scene of the crime at the time it was being committed and disappears the next morning.’

‘Or, he is another victim.’

Dupin answered with some hesitation.

‘Or, he is another victim.’

‘I’ll inform the coastguard.’

‘Please do. And – Riwal?’

‘Yes.’

‘There was something else I’d forgotten just now: find out when our biologist, Leussot, is going to get back on land. Whether he’s coming to Saint-Nicolas. I would like to hear from him firsthand what happened with the fight between him and Lefort and why he didn’t say anything about it.’

‘Will do.’

Dupin hung up and only now did he notice that the Bakounine had already moored at the quay. Thirty metres away from Riwal. Anjela Barrault was standing at the railing and looking in his direction. Having been able simply to jump onto the boat earlier, he would just have to climb up some rungs of the rusty iron ladder now.

‘Thank you for your help, Madame Barrault. That information was important.’

‘Only you can judge that.’

The smile that crossed her face at this sentence was even more entrancing than before. She was fully aware of its effect.

‘Enjoy the diving, deep below the water.’

‘I’m not going to go that deep today.’

‘Speak to you very soon.’

That sounded more definite than Dupin had intended.

‘It would be a pleasure.’

Dupin considered offering Madame Barrault his hand to shake, but then simply climbed up the ladder.

*   *   *

Even from a distance, Dupin could see that Kadeg was sitting next to Riwal at the ‘operations table’. Dupin headed straight for the bar and left the two inspectors to their own devices. Which prompted baffled looks. He was in desperate need of a coffee. And a large glass of water. After leaving the Bakounine, he had suddenly been overcome by the strong feeling that the world, although he now had solid ground underfoot, was swaying even more violently than on the boat. The dizziness had been more severe than the attack before. The older of the two Nuz daughters served him in a friendly way and started a conversation, but Dupin was not in any condition to show any interest. He was concentrating intently on regaining his balance. He ordered two coffees, drank one immediately standing up and moved very, very slowly and carefully through the bar with the second one and the glass of water, making for the two inspectors outside.

Kadeg seemed to have been staring at the entrance to the bar. As soon as Dupin emerged from the door, he leapt up and came hurrying over.

‘The helicopter just dropped me off. We have come across a range of controversial information during the searches – the hard drives were conclusive,’ Kadeg was too quick and too eager for Dupin to have been able to interrupt him. ‘I had been trying to reach you, but it was always engaged. I wanted to speak to you directly. There are more companies owned by Pajot, some of which Konan was involved in. As an investor. One is a consortium belonging to the two them – and guess who else was involved and what the purpose of it was!’

This was how Kadeg was when he had tracked something down. Dupin was not in the mood for this over-enthusiasm. He sat down. Of course it had only been a rhetorical guessing game – after a short, dramatic pause, Kadeg came straight to the point.

‘They set up a consortium for the development of tourism in the Glénan, which in turn has shares in Lefort’s business.’

That really was an interesting piece of news. Dupin drank the second coffee. In small, but quick sips, so as not to burn his mouth again. He didn’t know whether it would be good for him in this very unpleasant state, seasickness did have something to do with the stomach – but Georges Dupin essentially believed caffeine capable of anything. A medical miracle of course.

‘What is the company called?’

‘Les Glénan vertes. ‘The Green Glénan. That was Lefort’s new project. And there’s even better to come.’

Another dramatic pause.

‘It was extremely complicated to find out. They made every effort imaginable to cover it up. With numerous accounts and sub-accounts. An expert from Rennes had to take a look. Then I went through it with him, painstakingly. He obviously couldn’t make out the hidden meaning.’

‘What, Kadeg?’

‘Transfers were made from one of Pajot’s accounts to Du Marhallac’h twice, each for over thirty thousand euro, nine months ago and six months ago.’

Dupin was immediately alert, the dizziness completely vanished. He didn’t say a word. Because his thoughts were racing – and because he did not want to show he was impressed by Kadeg. ‘The transfers were marked “architect’s services”. We haven’t found anything yet about any services rendered in any records or on the computers.’

‘Architect’s services?’

Riwal chimed in:

‘Du Marhallac’h is an architect actually. He has had his own office for twenty-two years. But since he has been mayor, he has only worked as an architect occasionally. Before that he must have been extremely successful, he got commissions all along coast.’

Riwal’s brother was an architect, just like Dupin’s sister. He was well informed.

‘Good.’

Dupin leant back. He himself didn’t know what he meant by ‘good’. It was clear from Kadeg and Riwal’s faces: they didn’t know either. It was getting more and more odd. He was familiar with this of course. Sometimes there were several substantial leads in a case, but normally a proportion of them cooled down over the course of the investigation, suddenly or gradually. The opposite was the case here – more and more kept cropping up.

‘What about the director, Kadeg – and the institute? The deals between the institute and Medimare?’

That’s what the searches had really been about for Dupin.

‘The experts are still working on that. So far, all of the files look normal. On paper at least. We also have not found any suspicious transactions or anything like that yet.’

‘And the deals involving Leussot’s research?’

‘Nothing unusual there either. At this point we have identified four such cases. Depending on what dodgy stuff went on, it will be difficult to impossible to prove anything actionable.’

Kadeg was all too openly enjoying explaining how Dupin’s lead had so far come to nothing.

‘Kadeg. You head off straight away. I want you to drive to Du Marhallac’h and grill him. Properly.’

‘But I’ve only just arrived and along with Riwal, I wanted…’

‘Tear him apart, Kadeg.’

From the gleeful flicker in Kadeg’s eyes, it was clear that Dupin had now hit upon the right choice of words.

‘All right.’

‘This is corruption. And I want watertight evidence of it. The whole story. They bought him. No way did he just want to simply examine them with an open mind.’

Again, Dupin was proved right in his prejudices towards politicians – pathetically, it was sad.

‘I’d also be interested to know how far along the plans for the development of the islands really were. What stage were they at? They must be on Lefort’s laptop, Kadeg.’

‘We’ve already found them there, but we haven’t been able to take a look yet.’

‘“Architect’s services”. – We’re going to nail him!’

No matter how much he tried, Dupin couldn’t manage to savour the moment properly. So far, the search had been anything but a triumph. He had wanted to get his hands on something against the Director of the institute. Above all: he wanted to solve the murder case. Besides, he was responsible for making use of the last resort in investigative tools, based on the vague hint of a mystery caller.

Kadeg leapt up, full of energy.

‘The helicopter is still here. I’ll hurry.’

‘Be rough, Kadeg.’

At these words, Kadeg turned to Dupin with a look confident of triumph and an irrefutable sense of having the case in hand.

Dupin and Riwal sat together for a few minutes longer and had a discussion. Dupin made it brief, he wanted to speak to Muriel Lefort as soon as possible.

By now the press had arrived too of course, they were long since overdue. ‘The press’ meant the two chief reporters from the Finistère-Sud-editorial department at Télégramme and Ouest France. The old, well-loved and although not exactly tall, still practically round Drollec, a real gourmand, and the delicate, intellectual, mid-thirties Donal with her stylishly angular black glasses (Dupin liked the unusual duo somehow). They often turned up together out of necessity, whenever there was ‘something big’ going on. Both of them were very much people of few words, but when they met like this they were obviously not unpleasant to each other either. As if they had agreed to abandon the attempts to be ‘the first’ in order to get all the more information together. Their arrangement which, in the end, always led to a tie between the two papers, didn’t work badly, Dupin had to admit. Right now, they were at the spot where the bodies had been found on Le Loc’h.

*   *   *

Dupin approached the ugly triangular houses via the same path as the day before, looking as he did so at the same breathtaking panorama beneath the still predominantly deep Atlantic-blue sky. Yet everything was different from yesterday.

Dupin noticed that Muriel Lefort’s house was not in as good condition as her brother’s, the roof was covered in moss, it must have been a while since its last coat of paint. As at Lucas Lefort’s, you had to walk once around the house to get to the entrance. Even Muriel Lefort’s garden consisted mainly of bushy lawn. Two camellia bushes, which had definitely never got very big or beautiful, stood a little sadly at the edge.

After a quick ring on the doorbell, Muriel Lefort opened the door. Her hair was dishevelled, her face severe, even narrower than before. Instead of the unconventional tweed skirt with the tight blouse, today she was wearing jeans and a wide, light blue tunic, which, oddly, did not make her appearance seem more casual. Dupin had an impression of old-fashionedness, a slight stiffness, and it didn’t stem from the clothing.

‘I’m glad you’re here, Monsieur le Commissaire.’

She really did seem relieved.

‘Of course. As I said, I have a series of questions for you too.’

Deep creases appeared on her forehead, which she didn’t try to hide.

‘Where should I begin?’ It was clear that she was finding talking difficult. It took a moment before she was able to go on.

‘I have to tell you something,’ she broke off again. ‘Maela Menez had an affair with my brother,’ she sounded dramatic and downcast in equal measures now, ‘seven years ago. She tried to keep it quiet, but of course I noticed.’

Muriel Lefort looked at the floor in embarrassment. They were still standing in the doorway, which she only seemed to realise now.

‘Sorry – I didn’t mean to be rude. Please do come in.’

Dupin didn’t react at first. Then he stepped inside.

‘Your assistant had an affair with your brother?’

That would never have crossed his mind. Madame Lefort led Dupin to the small suite of four armchairs right in front of the large panorama window that looked out on the terrace.

‘I’m terribly sorry that I didn’t tell you earlier, I’m finding this extremely unpleasant. The affair went on for months in fact.’

‘And then it just finished?’

‘Yes. She swore it to me. And I would have noticed, believe you me. She ended it. She almost collapsed when I confronted her, she was absolutely hysterical. She had embarked on this relationship even though she knew that it was not the same thing for her as it was for him.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘She was truly in love. And he wasn’t interested in her in the slightest.’

‘Your brother was the embodiment, if I understand correctly, of the opposite of Madame Menez’s convictions in every respect, which are apparently very clear and strict.’

Dupin himself had enough experience to know that this didn’t make any difference.

‘It was a betrayal. Yes.’

The harsh word contrasted oddly with the way in which Madame Lefort had uttered it, almost off-handedly.

‘Has there been any kind of contact between the two of them since then that went beyond business? Did something happen recently?’

‘No. Nothing at all. She assured me that there had been no incidents of any kind since. No scandal, nothing. I believe her.’

‘She didn’t write to him, didn’t try to talk to him?’

‘No. We didn’t even talk about it any more after a certain point. It was as if it had never happened. I think there was a tacit agreement between us on that.’

There was nothing unforgiving in her tone, in fact it was almost sympathetic.

‘And what do you personally think about this affair?’

‘Me?’

She seemed surprised. ‘I was really hurt by it, as I’m sure you can imagine.’

Dupin wasn’t sure whether this whole thing was so unpleasant for Muriel Lefort because she might be making Madame Menez suspicious in the eyes of the police by sharing it, or because she assumed that she herself was becoming more suspicious because she had held back this information until now. A long pause developed. Dupin wanted to let her talk. Muriel Lefort looked like there was something else she wanted to say. But nothing more followed.

‘Thank you for sharing this. I don’t know myself whether this story is relevant, but I am keen to gather as much information as possible about each person in a case as tangled as this one.’

She was still silent.

‘You spoke of several points on the phone.’

‘Yes.’

She sounded more composed now, Dupin’s support seemed to be working.

‘I wanted to tell you in person that I will profit hugely from the death of my brother. I was informed this afternoon that Lucas didn’t make a will and that I will therefore inherit everything. We still have the same notary, he and I. So the sailing school and the properties will belong solely to me.’

These sentences practically came gushing out of her. She had looked Dupin right in the eye as she spoke. He tried to remain outwardly indifferent.

‘Your inspector had already asked me about it twice.’

‘We work together very closely.’

‘I don’t know whether you’ve also already found out that I offered to buy my brother out of his stake in the Glénan several times. Absolutely nonsense offers.’

‘I already know that too.’

She looked anxiously and expectantly at him.

‘I think that would indeed be a perfect motive: my brother sets sail drunk, in boundless hubris, during a gathering storm at sea and suffers a shipwreck – nobody would have been surprised. Everyone knew how arrogant he was. And the sailing school belongs to me the next day.’

Dupin was silent. A silence that Muriel Lefort couldn’t stand for long.

‘What do you think, Monsieur le Commissaire?’

‘That would have been nearly a perfect murder, yes. Coincidence had other ideas.’

‘Am I a suspect?’

‘Yes, you are.’

Madame Lefort was silent now. It was a weighty silence, her facial features had become shapeless. Her voice cracked.

‘I didn’t hate my brother, believe me,’ she was speaking very softly now, ‘but I disdained him. Yes. And fought with him. Because he would have destroyed my parents’ work if he had been able to, their great ideas. My parents were both in the Résistance as young people. They chose the Glénan for themselves and their lives in the spirit of their group and wanted to pass on this spirit through the sailing and the school. They believed in something, risked their lives for it. This is their legacy. That’s what they and everything that they were, stood for. They never wanted to make a business out of it. Even when more and more people came from all over and they realised that you could earn a lot of money from it.’

‘You don’t just inherit the part of the sailing school that belonged to your brother, you also inherit the land – more than half of Saint-Nicolas, if I’m not mistaken and the islands of Cigogne and Penfret?’

Dupin deliberately posed his question nonchalantly.

‘Yes.’

He looked at her. As neutrally as possible.

‘And not only would you have disposed of your brother. In one fell swoop you would have got rid of everyone who threatened all of this here.’

‘Yes. My motives must seem stronger and stronger to you.’

‘That’s true.’

‘We’re definitely talking a good – about sixty or eighty million euro all told.’

‘And, did you do it, Madame Lefort?’ Dupin asked calmly.

Muriel Lefort’s eyes twitched for a moment, a twitch that spread over her entire face.

‘No.’

‘Did you know that your brother founded a company especially for the new plans? Les Glénans vertes? And that Pajot and Konan had a consortium that wanted to have a stake in this firm?’

Muriel was visibly confused. By the change of subject too.

‘No. I didn’t know anything about that.’

‘How much was known about these new plans here on the archipelago then?’

‘Nothing at all, I don’t think. Lucas was aware that everyone here would have been against them – irrespective of exactly how the plans looked now. Even back when he submitted them the first time, everyone was against them in the end. Even though he did manage to make a few people fall for it at the beginning.’

‘Who fell for it back then?’

‘Several people, but at some point they saw through him. At first he pretended he wanted to save the sailing school and our whole world out here. He said that there was interest ‘from outside’ in investing in the Glénan and developing tourism. Solenn Nuz and her husband were fully on board at first and Kilian Tanguy, but then they swiftly and categorically distanced themselves. They originally thought everything would happen in a kind of collective. Like in the sailing school. Lucas had conveyed it like that. But then it became clear that they were simply to invest in his business and that he was planning to exploit the archipelago, which would have destroyed everything. Konan was already on board back then too. Plus Lucas was able to produce two further investors from the mainland, whom he lost again equally quickly. – The more famous he became as a sailor, the more he was in contact with all of these people.’

‘And Devan Le Menn, the doctor – was he on board too?’

‘Yes, he was one of the two.’

‘Did he stay on board when the others turned away?’

‘I couldn’t tell you.’

‘Was he already a friend of your brother’s back then?’

‘He had been his doctor for a long time. Lucas had a few serious accidents, mostly through recklessness and sometimes he only just escaped with his life. He liked to sail in severe storms. Le Menn patched him up over and over again. He also mentored him as a competitive sportsman. At some point they became friends. I don’t know how close the friendship was.’

Dupin wondered whether he should tell her about Le Menn’s disappearance.

‘Did anything in particular strike you in relation to Le Menn recently?’

Madame Lefort looked at him, at a loss.

‘No. But I don’t see him often either.’

‘He was also in the Quatre Vents on Sunday evening, if only briefly. Like you.’

Dupin had also said this in a deliberately neutral tone.

‘I didn’t see him. I was probably already gone by then. Or else he was.’

‘We don’t know…’

Dupin’s mobile, which had been quiet for an unusually long time, shrilled loudly. It was Riwal.

‘Excuse me a moment, Madame Lefort.’

Dupin answered the call.

‘One of the helicopters has found Le Menn’s boat. It’s on the south coast of Brilimec. On the side facing the open sea. It’s one of the smaller islands. Diagonally on the beach, so he must have got there hours ago, when it was still high tide.’

Riwal’s voice was almost cracking.

‘Hello? Hello, chief?’

Dupin was silent. This was serious news. It took him a few seconds to compose himself.

‘Call Goulch. He can’t be far away on the Bir. He’s to pick us up straight away. We are going to Brilimec. Let’s meet at the quay.’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

*   *   *

A quarter of an hour later Dupin found himself on a boat for the third time already that day, hurtling across the waves at top speed once more. This time he was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he barely took any notice. Things were escalating – whatever it was that was going on here.

Dupin was standing in the bow. He could feel the tension throughout his body and he was in a grim, determined mood. Riwal was positioned diagonally behind him. They stared, spellbound, at Brilimec, nowdirectly ahead of them. Neither really noticed that they kept getting hit by sea spray.

They began toscan the teardrop-shaped island carefully. Brilimec was barely a hundred and fifty metres long and absolutely overgrown with thick, scraggy grasses. In a few places the grasses soared to about ten metres – which was quite a lot for the archipelago – and some powerful and bizarre granite rock formations towered steeply upwards. At the wider end of the island stood an abandoned house, of which only the roof could be made out from the ship.

‘I’ll drive around the island, to Le Menn’s boat,’ called Goulch.

Suddenly something occurred to Dupin. He turned to Riwal.

‘I need to know something.’

He had to shout.

‘Yes?’

‘Who do we have on Saint-Nicolas?’

‘Only one person at the moment. Philippe Le Coz.’

‘I need to speak to him straight away.’

Dupin moved into the stern and waited for Goulch to throttle the engine a little, because they had almost rounded the island. They could see Le Menn’s boat clearly from here.

‘Le Coz?’

‘Monsieur le Commissaire, is that you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I can’t hear you very well at all.’

Dupin shouted even more loudly into the phone.

‘I want to know where everyone is right now. Do you hear me? Muriel Lefort, Madame Menez, the mayor, Leussot, Tanguy. Also Madame Barrault and Solenn Nuz. Call all of them immediately. Verify what they say. However you can. Have Bellec come and help you straight away.’

‘I…’

‘Straight away. And the Nuz daughters too. I need to know this about all of them.’

‘Absolutely, Monsieur le Commissaire.’

‘Keep in touch.’

Dupin hung up. He was already putting his phone away in his jacket when he hesitated and pressed redial.

‘Something else, Monsieur le Commissaire?’

‘I also want to know where they spent the day today. In great detail. Everyone. The last few hours. What they did. On the islands, or wherever they were.’

Goulch had throttled back the engines but Dupin accidentally screamed the last sentence, staring intently at Le Menn’s boat, which looked absurd, lying so far up a small patch of beach.

‘Do you have anything specific in mind?’

‘No. I just need to know this about everyone.’

‘Understood.’

Dupin hung up again and this time he stuffed his mobile deep into his pocket.

The engines died. It was perhaps fifty metres to the shore, the anchor was dropped, the two young police officers, were already in the process of lowering the dinghy with perfectly synchronised movements and a moment later they were coming aground on the beach at considerable speed. There was a severe jolt. The two police officers leapt out of the dinghy immediately and Dupin climbed after them, warning them: ‘We have no idea what’s going on here. Be careful.’

He pulled his gun out of his belt, a 9mm Sig Sauer, the national police-issue weapon. The others copied him.

The small group approached the boat quickly.

‘Police de Concarneau – hello? Is anybody there? Please give a sign.’

No reaction of any kind.

The two young police officers climbed onto the Merry Fisher immediately. Riwal, Goulch and Dupin positioned themselves, without saying a word, next to it. The dazzlingly white boat, with dark blue just on the lower part of the hull, seemed surprisingly large to Dupin up close. There was nothing remarkable visible on deck.

‘We’re going in.’

The young officers’ excitement was clear. They opened the door to the cabin and a moment later disappeared.

Still no one said a word. Dupin thought it was taking quite a long time for the pair to report back.

‘There’s nothing out of the ordinary here.’

Their voices were muffled.

‘Come back out. We’ll search the island.’

Dupin practically growled. He turned to Riwal and Goulch much more quietly.

‘Riwal, you go clockwise. Goulch, you anti-clockwise. I’ll take the abandoned house, we’ll meet there. Goulch, tell your two colleagues to guard the boat.’

Dupin and Riwal set off straight away. Goulch waited.

First, Dupin had to scale a few tall granite rocks leading to a kind of plateau which fell gently away to the middle of the island after a few steps, where the terrain was relatively flat. That’s where the house stood. It was possible to make it out clearly even from the plateau. Dupin stood still and looked around with a keen eye. To the left of the plateau Goulch was moving fast and nimbly over the stones close to the water, while a little further ahead, Riwal was walking on the right hand side of the island.

The house stood there inconspicuously, in complete silence. There was no one in sight. Dupin went ahead carefully, his gun grasped tightly in his right hand. He had to watch his step, the ground was uneven. He approached the house from behind. A small window was roughly boarded up with wooden slats. The slate roof on the other hand still seemed to be in astonishingly good condition, although covered in moss. The house was made of stone, built in the typical style for the region. It looked considerably more battered than the roof. Small pieces had broken off the walls in several places.

Dupin moved carefully around the house so that he was diagonally across from the front door. He waited there until Riwal and Goulch joined him.

‘Nothing of note, no footprints, nothing.’

‘Same here.’

Instinctively, Riwal and Goulch were speaking quietly.

‘Let’s take a look at the house.’

Dupin walked towards the door.

‘Monsieur Le Menn?’

Dupin had called out loudly, insistently.

‘Are you there, Docteur Le Menn?’

And again: ‘Docteur Le Menn – this is Commissaire Dupin from the Commissariat de Police Concarneau.’

Riwal and Goulch were following half a step behind Dupin and almost collided with him when he suddenly stopped dead. They both followed his gaze. A broken padlock lay on the ground. The door, repaired in a makeshift way with two large wooden slats, was ajar.

All three remained motionless.

‘We’re going in.’

Dupin got his gun into position and gave the door a powerful kick, so that it burst open with a tremendous bang. A moment later he was inside and immediately leapt to the wall on his right.

‘Commissariat de Police – is there anyone here?’

It was almost dark. It took a while for Dupin’s eyes to adjust to the dusky light and for him to be able to make out details.

The room was empty, dust lay centimetres deep on the broken wooden floorboards. On the left hand side there was a passageway where a door once used to be. There were clear footprints in the dust. Several. They led into the other room. Riwal and Goulch had come in too and were standing shoulder to shoulder next to him, guns at the ready. Dead silence, nothing to be heard apart from their breathing.

‘The other room,’ Dupin whispered.

Again he went ahead, slowly, the gun pointed at the passageway, pausing for a brief moment as though to summon his strength and then making an impressive lunge into the adjoining room. Riwal and Goulch followed suit.

Here too: nothing. No one. No Devan Le Menn. In contrast to the front room, furniture was piled up here, including the remains of two tables and a wardrobe. Riwal and Goulch suddenly had torches in their hands. Goulch stooped down to the blurry prints that could also be seen here in the layer of dust. They hadn’t uttered a word so far.

‘There were at least two people, I think. Maybe three, it’s hard to say. More than one anyway. We need forensics, we should move very carefully now. And somebody presumably stood here,’ Goulch pointed to a spot next to the tower of furniture.

‘Yes, call forensics. Tell them to come immediately.’

René Reglas, the greatest forensic expert in the world. Dupin shuddered at the thought of his pompous ‘crime scene work’. But there was no way round it.

‘I’ve already given them advance warning.’

Goulch left the room. Riwal looked around systematically with his torch, without moving from the same spot.

‘This is bizarre. Where is Le Menn? He came to the island on his boat, but he’s not here. How did he get away? Who else was here? And why did he come here anyway?’

Dupin didn’t know whether Riwal was talking to himself or to him.

‘Let’s search the beaches again. Perhaps we’ll find traces after all. A second boat must have landed somewhere. If Le Menn hasn’t disappeared into thin air, then he must have left the island on that second boat! I want to know what happened here!’

Dupin was furious. Although he didn’t know who or what with. With himself most likely.

‘Such bullshit. This just doesn’t make sense.’

All of this had happened right under his nose. Perhaps even this afternoon when he had been waltzing around the islands on board the Bakounine. Less than a kilometre away as the crow flies.

‘Let’s go.’

Dupin wanted to get out this stuffy dungeon. He left the stone house quickly and only stopped once he was a few metres away. Riwal and Goulch followed him. Silently, to be on the safe side.

In front of the house, about fifty metres away, was the island’s largest beach. Just before the sand, there was a kind of wall made from rounded granite blocks. Dupin headed for the beach. He came to a stop above the granite blocks, then squeezed between two of them and walked in tiny steps along the high tide mark. Nothing. Nothing to be seen. Not even the beginnings of a lead.

Goulch and Riwal hadcaught up with him.

‘If there was a second boat here, it definitely landed on the other side of the island, not here in the chamber. Whoever was here, he certainly didn’t want to be seen. Let’s go back. Maybe the others have actually found something,’ Dupin said in a strained voice.

Goulch and Riwal nodded.

They walked back, past the house, up the gentle slope until they arrived back at the plateau. Apart from the beach directly in front of them, where Le Menn’s boat and their dinghy lay, they could see three more small beaches from up here.

‘Come on, Goulch, we’ll take the beaches to the left, Riwal, you take the one on the right.’

They climbed carefully down the steep rocks.

Goulch and Dupin hadn’t reached the first of the two adjacent beaches when they heard Riwal calling.

‘Over here! – Over here!’

They turned on their heels.

Half a minute later, both of them were standing, panting, next to Riwal, who was on a narrow beach surrounded by flat rocks. The two young police officers had joined them.

Riwal had crouched down and was inspecting the sand in front of him.

‘There are footprints here. Up ahead here, prints of a person running in this direction,’ he pointed a little to the left, ‘and there, of two people moving in our direction.’

It was clear. Dupin stood up and followed the tracks. They led towards the water and vanished where the sand was still damp from the high tide. On the other side they ended at a field of small stones. The big rocks began beyond it, which didn’t rise quite so steeply upwards here.

Dupin ran a hand roughly through his hair.

‘Le Menn really did come alone. As did a second person. For whatever reason, they spent some time together in the abandoned house and then left the island on the second person’s boat.’

‘Maybe they were at a different part of the island too.’

Dupin and Goulch stared at Riwal.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Well, maybe they weren’t just in the house. Maybe the house wasn’t the main reason for coming to the island at all. Maybe they – or one of the two – were looking for something? Burying something or digging it up?’

‘What makes you think that?’

Dupin was irritated.

‘I don’t know,’ Riwal’s gaze swept over the water, he was murmuring now. ‘What happens on the islands does not always conform to reality as we know it. We’ve known that for a long time.’

Dupin sighed.

‘Forensics should take a look at the house – and search the whole island. Thoroughly. I have to make a call.’

He walked a few metres away. He needed to speak to Le Coz. To know what he thought he already knew anyway. He dialled the number. Nothing happened. He tried again. Again the connection went dead. He gaped at the screen. And went back to the group.

‘Riwal, we’ve got no reception.’

There was real accusation in his voice and he couldn’t suppress it.

‘That happens on the islands.’

‘This cannot be happening!’

This was no way to work.

‘Unfortunately I wouldn’t even know who to radio.’

It was impossible to have comprehensive conversations over radio anyway, in Dupin’s opinion. But Goulch meant well.

‘We’ll go back to Saint-Nicolas straight away. And Goulch, radio the coastguard. A helicopter is to have the area around the island searched.’

Dupin marched resolutely to the beach where Le Menn’s boat and the dinghy lay. Goulch and Riwal followed him. He checked for the reception symbol every few metres with increasing rage. In vain. It didn’t even change on the water, not even at the spot where he had still been on the phone on the way there. It was enough to make you tear your hair out.

Shortly before they moored at the quay, the first bar had appeared on the screen and a moment later all of them at once. Dupin had stormed over to the operations table in the Quatre Vents as if he wanted to make an arrest.

‘What have we got?’

A list lay in front of Le Coz. Dupin sat down next to him. No matter how hectic things were, Le Coz was calmness itself, without being slow. He was by far the oldest and the most experienced person in the commissariat. He still had two years to go till his retirement. His knowledge, his accuracy and above all his level-headedness had made made Dupin take to him from the beginning.

‘I’ve just consulted Bellec again. Leussot, the biologist, was at sea from nine o’clock, on board his boat. He arrived here half an hour ago.’

‘I’m concerned with…’ Dupin reflected, trying to calculate the last high tide, ‘with the time from half past twelve till four o’clock. What did Leussot do after I was with him? He would have easily had enough time to go to Brilimec.’

‘He says he stayed at the place where you visited him all day. We won’t be able to verify that.’

‘Oh, wonderful!’

Dupin clasped the back of his head. Le Coz was right.

Riwal had now arrived at the operations table too and sat down.

‘Keep going, Le Coz.’

‘This diver, Monsieur Tanguy, has guests visiting from Brest, a delegation of marine archaeologists. They are sitting here in the Quatre Vents right now. Out the front on the terrace. He picked them up in Concarneau at three o’clock.’

‘And before that?’

‘Before that he was here, he says. Because of the preparations. He was also here overnight. On his boat.’

‘When did he set out?’

‘Around half past one, he said.’

‘Alone?’

‘Alone.’

Fantastic. How were they meant to find out whether he had taken a detour to Brilimec? He would have had enough time to do it. And even to take Le Menn somewhere too. As victim, perpetrator or accomplice. While Le Coz was speaking, Dupin had begun to make notes.

‘The mayor?’

‘He was working at home in his office almost all day, in…’

‘I know.’

‘Exactly, you visited him this morning, he told us. Then just between four o’clock and five o’clock he had an official engagement. In the local kindergarden. Monsieur Du Marhallac’h was very cooperative.’

‘Witnesses? The kindergarden children of course. It will be difficult for the time in the office. He claims to have talked to his wife on the phone several times, she is probably in London. On the landline. That can be verified.’

‘Brilliant.’

Dupin could not have enunciated this word with greater cynicism.

‘The younger Nuz daughter was at her boyfriend’s place, they were in Quimper, the older one was working here in the Quatre Vents all day. Solenn Nuz was on the mainland. Apparently she runs errands every Tuesday and Friday. She left at half past ten and only got back an hour ago. She was in Fouesnant, in the mairie and ended in Concarneau. She came back with lots of big shopping bags. She ate in the Amiral at lunchtime, we were able to check that.’

Dupin felt a brief feeling of joy at the mention of the Amiral.

‘And Madame Lefort?’

‘Bellec is speaking to her right now.’

‘Madame Barrault – the diving instructor?’

Le Coz looked at his notes.

‘She ran a course this morning, until one o’clock, then she ate at home. In the afternoon you were out with her of course and afterwards she went diving herself. She has also only just returned. Around the same time as Leussot.’

‘Where does Madame Barrault live?’

‘In the second house over there, with the triangular roof…’

‘I know it,’ he said. ‘And she was alone at home over lunchtime?’

‘So she says. She thinks there definitely aren’t any witnesses.’

Dupin couldn’t help smirking. That sounded very much like Madame Barrault.

‘And what about old Monsieur Nuz, Solenn Nuz’s father-in-law?’

‘You didn’t mention Pasacal Nuz. But I did just speak to him. He is – a little withdrawn. He was in the Quatre Vents in the morning, reading the paper at the bar, then he was at home. At four o’clock he headed for the Moutons in his boat, apparently he does that every day, his granddaughter vouched for that. Headed off towards the shoals of mackerel, he came back at six with a pile of fish.’

‘Okay.’

A kind of high-pitched fanfare suddenly rang out. Le Coz answered the call straight away.

‘Yes?’

He turned to Dupin.

‘Bellec. He’s got the additional information. Shall I put it on loudspeaker?’

Le Coz took Dupin’s hesitation as agreement, pressed a button and placed the phone on the table in front of him.

‘Bellec. We’re all listening now.’

‘Bonjour, Monsieur le Commissaire. I…’

This was always a horrific situation, Dupin thought, he hated talking hands-free like this.

‘Fire away, Bellec.’

They needed to make progress.

‘Madame Lefort was on Saint-Nicolas all day long, she was on the phone several times, including with her notary. She was in her office in the sailing school mostly, but walked back to her house several times. She went for a few walks. Madame Menez came over to her house for about half an hour at lunchtime. After their conversation she left to go to the sailing school on Penfret, to meet Madame Menez again, at around quarter past six.’

Even this was vague in parts and, where witnesses could confirm it in detail, they could only do so with a great deal of effort. This much was clear: for someone who was on the islands anyway, three-quarters of an hour would have sufficed for the Brilimec episode, depending of course on what had happened to Le Menn …

‘Madame Lefort seemed very concerned that she is now the prime suspect, also because she was questioned again so soon after the long conversation she had with you. I assured her that these were all routine enquiries.’

In truth this was the least of Dupin’s worries right now. She should be anxious.

‘And the assistant, Madame Menez?’

‘Madame Menez appeared to be remorseful, although she seemed stubborn. She had several meetings with various sailing teachers today, in the office. At lunchtime she was at Madame Lefort’s house, as I mentioned. Then she ate in the Quatre Vents and then finally had long team conferences with the heads of accommodation on Cigogne and Penfret.’

‘When did these team conferences begin?’

‘One ran from half two till four and one from five till half six. Madame Menez is still on Penfret.’

Dupin was making detailed notes.

‘When did she set out for Cigogne, I mean, when exactly after lunch?’

‘According to her statement she was in her house for a little while after lunch. And so left around quarter past two.’

‘Can someone confirm that?’

‘Not yet. We should check.’

It was driving Dupin crazy that none of this information was helping him to make any progress.

‘Please do, Bellec.’

Le Coz hung up.

‘Should we be verifying other statements too, Commissaire?’

Dupin reflected. Le Coz and Bellec had done some good work in such a short time, as meagre as the fruits of their labour seemed at the moment.

‘No need. Thank you.’

They were none the wiser. Everyone would have had the opportunity to make the trip to Brilimec. It would have to be a big, big coincidence for there to be witnesses. And it would probably be impossible to narrow down the relevant time further.

‘I spoke to Le Menn’s wife again just now. After we found out that he went to the Glénan. I wondered whether she associated anything with Brilimec.’

Le Coz had torn Dupin away from his thoughts. That had been a good idea.

‘But there was nothing. Nothing at all.’

Dupin stood up abruptly.

‘None of this feels right to me.’

Riwal chipped in for the first time.

‘Goulch has taken charge of the forensics on Brilimec. He went back to the islands again too. Maybe they will find trace evidence in the house after all.’

‘Maybe.’

Dupin realised that his thoughts were taking on a life of their own. He walked a few metres to one side. He definitely had a few theories by now, some more specific than others, but overall the picture that emerged was still much too blurry. He couldn’t find the truly central element.

Dupin looked at his watch. It was coming up to eight o’clock now. He had been up since five. And the day would not be over for a long time yet.

From this side of the Quatre Vents there was a clear view to the west, which actually meant you could watch the sun go down. But not this evening. The band of cloud had come menacingly close, piling up into a gigantic cloud front, a monster, probably no more than ten kilometres away. Pitch-black. Only now did Dupin notice that the wind hadn’t just picked up, at this point it was continuously sweeping powerful squalls over the islands. But he knew: even that didn’t mean anything yet in Brittany, he’d been through it all before, he was no rookie any more. Dupin looked at the sea. There were already white horses. And proper waves. That had been quick. On the way back to Saint-Nicolas from Brilimec he still hadn’t noticed anything. But apart from the first small stretch, they had been going through the chamber and he had been staring at his mobile the entire time.

He took a few deep breaths.

‘You said that Kilian Tanguy is still here in the Quatre Vents?’

‘Yes. Out the front on the terrace.’

‘I’ll have a word with him.’

‘As I said, he’s got guests. Underwater archaeologists.’

‘So much the better.’

Dupin almost didn’t recognise Kilian Tanguy in jeans and a colourful sweatshirt, instead of the neoprene suit, with a dry face and dry head. It was only the shape of his head that gave him away: it was like an egg. He had a bald head apart from a narrow, closely cropped hairline above the ears, which was still an untouched black; plus a fleshy nose and eyes full of fun. He was sitting with six men, all about the same age.

‘Bonjour Messieurs, Commissaire Georges Dupin from the Commissariat de Police Concarneau. I would like to speak to Monsieur Tanguy, but since I’ve heard that you’re all underwater archaeologists, I’d like to put some questions to all of you.’

Dupin spoke firmly and low, which rarely failed to have the desired effect.

‘You’re the police officer from Paris, aren’t you?’

A well-built man with a baby face looked inquisitively at him. As did the rest of the table.

Dupin was sick of answering this question.

‘Did you know that Paris was called after the legendary sunken city Ys?’ the man went on eagerly. ‘Par-Ys! After the Breton Atlantis which was infinitely magnificent and rich and worshipped the ocean as their only God in extravagant ceremonies. The kingdom of Gradlon, his daughter Dahut, who was fiancée of the sea and his magical horse Morvark, which is the symbol of a free Brittany to this day. Ys was off Douarnenez! There are many very serious archaeological indications.’

Dupin had never heard of this, just as he had never heard that Paris was ultimately Breton, apparently. Luckily, Kilian Tanguy chipped in at this moment.

‘I think that would be fine by all of us, Monsieur le Commissaire. You actually have a group of illustrious underwater archaeologists from the University of Brest in front of you, friendly associates of our small group in the club. How can we help the police?’

There was something mischievous in his voice. Something pleasantly mischievous.

‘Do you know anything about treasure hunts going on at the moment here on the coast? Have you heard rumours?’

The divers looked at each other, unruffled. Kilian Tanguy answered again.

‘You think a story about treasure hunting is behind the three murders?’

He clearly sounded proud at this.

‘We are investigating various avenues. And that is one of them. Nothing more.’

‘I haven’t heard anything about a sensational find. Not even rumours.’

Tanguy added in a much more serious way:

‘But you must know, Monsieur le Commissaire, that we, as we say, dive for wood, not for precious metals! Underwater archaeology has absolutely different aims. Scientific aims. For example, we look for settlement sites from the Mesolithic era. As early as four thousand years before Christ, a Dolmen was erected here on Brunec and graves were dug on Saint-Nicolas and Bananec too. We know next to nothing about this culture. So much has now lain beneath the surface of the water for such a long time.’

His facial expression almost betrayed a kind of outrage now.

‘The sea has risen a hundred metres in the last ten thousand years! A hundred metres! A few thousand years ago, the British were still, God save us, coming to France with dry feet! – And if we take an interest in sunken ships, which we definitely do, then only in order to be able to study the historical boat architecture and techniques of their respective nautical epochs.’

A mild, tongue-in-cheek smile stole across his face.

‘Last year two sunken ships were found, one from the seventeenth century, one from the twentieth. In the one from the seventeenth century there were silver coins. The other one was unremarkable. Maybe thirty kilometres to the south of here.’

Tanguy had uttered these last sentences with marked cheeriness.

‘And there’s no ship,’ asked Dupin, ‘that, due to some documents or other, people know in theory must be in the vicinity but hasn’t yet been found?’

Every gaze fixed on Dupin in astonishment. Tanguy took charge of answering again.

‘There are about two dozen of them – and that’s within a radius of fifty nautical miles alone. And in at least a dozen cases the documents suggest cargoes of substantial value. Two of the ships are highly likely to have had large amounts of gold on board.’

‘You’re pretty sure you know of two ships with gold cargo near here?’ Dupin was astonished.

‘Don’t go getting the wrong idea, it’s more complicated than you think. Like a needle in a haystack. – In a wild, dangerous haystack.’

‘So none of you heard that one of the three dead mean was on a specific treasure hunt? That’s what I want to know.’

‘No. Nothing.’

Dupin would have been interested to know whether one of the other divers would have had anything else to say. Apparently not.

‘Thank you, Monsieur Tanguy.’

Dupin had had enough of the stories now (as fascinating as they were). And if he were honest, all conversations on this topic ended inconclusively, as they had all day long. But it was clear: if the three had been on the trail of something big, they would have given their all to make sure nobody found out anything about it. And, if someone had learnt something and this was the motive behind the whole case, then that would be the perpetrator. And he definitely wouldn’t say a thing.

Besides, Dupin was also unfocussed, he couldn’t stop thinking about the issue of what had happened to Le Menn on the island. He didn’t have a good feeling about it.

‘I’d really like…’

Dupin was suddenly interrupted by a noise. A sudden, strong squall had caught some of the Quatre Vents tables and chairs, knocking them over. The gust of wind had brought a smattering of fat raindrops with it. Considerable activity broke out. The previously quiet underwater archaeologists leapt up. One was in the process of rushing to the aid of a young couple whose table had fallen over, along with everything that had been on it. Tanguy and another man were protecting the things that were on their own table and hurrying to the bar with them. Everyone was moving swiftly, with precision and yet without any rush.

‘It’s all kicking off.’

Dupin turned around. Solenn Nuz was standing in the doorway to the bar.

She was looking around with utter indifference. Louann Nuz appeared behind her, then darted past her like a cat to take care of the tables.

‘I’ve been waiting for this all day. The storm really did take its time.’

Solenn Nuz delivered these sentences with perfect calmness.

Dupin was still standing as though rooted to the spot, as if the group of archaeologists was still sitting in front of him. Solenn Nuz looked at the sky:

‘This is going to be a big one.’

She went back into the bar.

The apocalyptic-looking bank of cloud was speeding over the islands. In the south and west it was already pitch-black – only far away in the east could you see a strip of light. Everything had happened so suddenly. Like an ambush. It was truly pouring with rain now and the temperature had dropped noticeably in the last few minutes.

Dupin shook himself out of his stupor. Louann Nuz was the last person still outside, everyone else had already fled inside the Quatre Vents. Dupin didn’t hesitate and followed her into the bar. He closed the door firmly behind him.

*   *   *

‘There’s a big cotriade.’

Dupin was standing at the bar. Solenn Nuz was on the other side of the counter, pouring various wines into a whole row of glasses in front of her with impressive speed. One of the underwater archaeologists was standing very close to him on his right hand side, the oldest one in Tanguy’s group. He was waiting for their order. To his left were Riwal and Le Coz. Solenn’s father-in-law was sitting at the end of the bar.

Dupin was still dazed, moments ago the atmosphere had been that of summer evening terraces, now he felt like he was in an isolated research station, cut off from the outside world. There was a fire burning in the large stone fireplace – on his previous visits Dupin hadn’t even noticed it existed, although it took up a whole corner of the room. The raging storm and the pelting rain outside could clearly be heard, but amazingly only as a muffled background noise, that was almost pleasant. It felt very cosy – even though Dupin was in anything but a cosy mood – but at the same time he found it menacingly cramped here, an odd mixture.

‘There’s traditionally a cotriade when storms come, Monsieur le Commissaire. It lifts the spirits. Would you like some?’

Dupin was focused on something else entirely – he urgently needed to make some calls. There were a number of things he definitely wanted to follow up. Besides, he couldn’t conceal the fact that, in the back of his mind, he was bothered by the question of how Solenn Nuz could have been so sure that a storm was coming that she had got to work on the undoubtedly elaborate preparations for the cotriade hours ago – meanwhile he himself would have sworn he could make out the unmistakeable signs of a solid high pressure zone. But what was much worse was this: in a storm they’d need to call off the sea-search for Le Menn. And even worse: what about the forensics? And Reglas and his team? Even they wouldn’t be able to work now. Dupin wondered where they’d got to – and also Goulch and his crew. Had they found a makeshift shelter on Brilimec? What about the helicopter? If Le Menn were on the run, he would be miles away by tomorrow – if he was in danger, everything would probably be too late now.

Solenn Nuz interpreted Dupin’s silence incorrectly.

‘Ah yes. Of course.’

She smiled gently.

‘You’re new of course – cotriade is our classic Breton fish stew.’

Dupin was familiar with cotriade, he had eaten it, at a rough estimate, once a month for the last four years. That made about thirty-five, forty cotriades, he guessed. It was among his favourite dishes. But he was too distracted to protest.

‘In the south they copied it as bouillabaisse! Some rouille in there and in an instant, they elevate it to the national dish!’ said one of the underwater archaeologists. The thin little man, who Dupin estimated to be in his late fifties, had an almost comically screechy voice, which didn’t match the outrage that his face was expressing as he chipped in.

‘The cotriade is the original! At least eight types of fish, plus shellfish and mussels! Leeks, Breton potatoes, Breton butter. Fresh herbs! Bay leaf! Fleur de sel! – In Marseille they only use six types of fish.’

It sounded like genuine contempt.

‘It was invented by the fishermen’s wives – in the evenings they used the fish and the fish pieces that their husbands hadn’t been able to sell in the market that morning for it. You put some pieces of baguette fried in butter in a flat bowl, pour the broth over, add the pieces of fish, shellfish and mussels – and then, the crucial part, you top the whole thing off with a strong sauce. A secret recipe in every house! You…’

Dupin interrupted him.

‘I urgently need to speak to my colleagues – excuse me.’

Solenn Nuz winked at Dupin and smiled knowingly.

Dupin made a signal to Riwal and Le Coz and they followed him. Dupin had taken a few steps towards the door when it occurred to him that it was not a good idea to go outside. They would have to stay indoors. But, although barely half of the tables were occupied, it was far too loud to talk on the phone, let alone be discreet. Even in the kitchen they wouldn’t be alone.

‘Let’s go into the annexe, I’m sure Madame Nuz won’t have a problem with that,’ said Riwal. ‘I’ll ask her quickly.’

It was a good idea. Dupin headed for the passageway immediately, Riwal back to the counter, to Solenn Nuz.

Before he opened the door, Dupin looked around quickly to Riwal, who nodded. Dupin had to push down hard on the iron door handle before walking inside.

He almost shrank away in terror. The storm was making an ear-splitting din in the wooden annexe. Soon, Riwal and Le Coz were standing behind him. The room’s lighting was much dimmer than next door.

‘Madame Nuz says we would be very welcome to use the room, but she can’t recommend it. We wouldn’t be able to hear ourselves.’

‘This is absolutely absurd. We will need to make a number of calls.’

Dupin’s mood was darkening with every passing second. After all, they had no time to waste.

He headed for the furthest corner of the annexe, in the hope that it would be better there. He pressed himself against the massive stone wall of the old building. His hope was in vain. The raging storm and whipping rain could not only be heard throughout the annexe as though you were standing in the open air, but it seemed as though the wooden structure acted as a resonance box, increasing the sound even more. Stubbornly, Dupin got out his mobile. He dialled Nolwenn’s number. No luck. And again. Again, no luck. He held the mobile up to his face. Nothing. No bars. Nothing at all. Not even the smallest one. There was no reception. Because of the storm.

Dupin hadn’t thought of that. This was utterly unbearable.

‘We’ll need to use Solenn Nuz’s landline then,’ he said.

Nobody said a word for a few seconds. Riwal stepped in.

‘There’s no landline out here, Commissaire.’

‘What?’

This came out so meekly and softly that nobody heard Dupin’s reaction. He was thunderstruck.

‘This cannot be happening. They’ve got to have a landline.’

‘There’s never been one here, chief. It would be an enormous expense – for a handful of people.’

Dupin gave up. This was a catastrophe. For many reasons. What would happen if they found Le Menn, somewhere on land and he had something something crucial to say. Or if Kadeg found out something relevant during the interrogation of the mayor. Even more importantly: if there were new results from the examination of the confiscated hard drives. He was at a critical point in the investigation, he needed to be contactable and in turn be able to get through to anyone he wanted to get through to any time.

‘Then we’ll need to go back to the mainland. There’s no way round it.’

Riwal tried to calm the Commissaire down.

‘There’s no way we can do that. In a storm like this, we cannot leave the island.’

‘What? This is not on.’

‘There’s only one thing we can do, as difficult as it may be: wait. We need to wait. Everyone on their respective islands. Us here, Bellec on Cigogne, the others on Brilimec.’

‘How long for?’

Again, it was clear that Riwal was considering how to break the news to him as gently as possible.

‘It doesn’t look like it will be over quickly.’ He tried hard to infuse the next sentence with confidence, ‘but you never know. Breton weather is hard to predict.’

‘How long?’

‘Until we can set out from here without any danger – probably late at night. Or early in the morning.’

‘Tomorrow morning?’

Dupin had difficulty speaking.

He was only gradually grasping the situation. It was far worse than he had supposed in his initial shock.

They were stranded. Here on the archipelago. Trapped. Cut off from the world. No matter what happened, come what may. Even in a medical emergency, even if there were another murder. They would not make it to the mainland. And nobody from the mainland would make it here. Only now did Dupin realise what the words that he’d heard so often in the last two days really meant: ‘The Glénan are not a real place at all, they are a nothingness in the middle of the sea.’ As though to underscore these thoughts, the annexe’s wooden structure had begun to creak and groan alarmingly at the last strong gust of wind.

Dupin started to say something but then left it. They were losing crucial hours.

Riwal and Le Coz were clearly worried about the Commissaire’s state. Dupin lowered his head and strode towards the door. He opened it very slowly and stood still in the doorway. In the last minutes, the number of customers had clearly grown, everyone was absolutely soaked through. He saw faces he didn’t recognise, but also Madame Menez, Muriel Lefort and Marc Leussot. Everyone was looking for shelter. And was hungry. Leussot had probably come from his boat and Madame Menez would have just made it back from Penfret. None of the three had noticed him yet.

Solenn Nuz cast him a look from the bar that was not easy to interpret, but probably meant something like ‘don’t worry about it’. Then she smiled. That calm smile, friendly at the same time. Dupin went over to her.

‘We’re stranded,’ he said.

‘I know. And there’s nothing you can do. It may last a while.’

‘What do you think? How long will it last?’

‘Definitely a night. I don’t think it will be longer than that.’

Dupin was too depressed to respond.

‘Madame Lefort will find a place for you and your colleagues to stay the night. She has a second house, right next to her own. There are two smaller apartments inside it. Madame Menez lives in one of them and she sometimes puts up guests in the other.’

Dupin wanted to decline. This was just too awful. He hadn’t even thought of it. But, they would need to sleep somewhere, for a couple of hours at least.

Riwal and Le Coz had sat down at one of the last free tables.

‘Lo and behold, Monsieur le Commissaire is one of the stranded too.’

Marc Leussot had positioned himself next to him, without Dupin seeing him approach. He was still wearing the faded shorts from lunchtime today, the same T-shirt. The conversation on the boat seemed to Dupin as though it had been days ago.

Dupin was not in the mood to talk. But he had a few urgent questions just for the marine biologist. Leussot kept talking before Dupin could get himself ready.

‘Has Le Menn turned up again?’

Dupin started.

‘You know about his disappearance?’

‘You’ve had a large-scale manhunt for him running for a few hours, across all media. I listen to a lot of radio on the boat.’

Of course. Most of them would know. Even if Madame Lefort seemed not to have known anything about it just now. The same went for Tanguy.

‘Yes. We’re searching for Docteur Le Menn.’

‘A bloody difficult case.’

‘You have no idea what might have happened to Le Menn?’

‘I would already have told you, believe me. This is serious.’

‘Speaking of seriousness. You never mentioned that you beat up Lefort not so long ago.’

‘That’s not a secret. And I think I made it very clear what I think of him.’

‘What else did you not share because you didn’t deem it necessary?’

Leussot laughed, a deep, confident laugh.

‘True. And that’s me – as a suspect many times over.’

Suddenly there was the sound of a muffled bang. Someone had opened the door from outside and as they did so a sharp wind had caught the door and swung it open violently. Anjela Barrault burst into the room. It looked funny and dramatic at the same time. With some force, she shut the door behind her, stood still for a moment and smiled at everyone. Instead of the diving suit, she was now wearing jeans and a windcheater. And she was dripping wet.

‘That was close.’

It didn’t sound at all tongue-in-cheek and so, based on what Dupin had just got to know about her, it meant without exaggeration: I only escaped certain death at sea by the skin of my teeth.

All of this was getting to be like a genuine scene from a novel. Dupin would have found it funny if it hadn’t been so serious. An alarmingly small island, cut off from the outside world, in the midst of a raging storm, in a creaky old house that had become a prison, where they were keeping vigil by the light of the fire. During the course of which, more mysterious things might happen. Crime, even a murder, might happen. In fact, the majority of the suspects were now gathered here.

Leussot seemed less taken by Barrault’s entrance, he seemed to be waiting for the continuation of his little rhetorical battle with Dupin instead. However, Dupin had lost his appetite for that conversation.

‘I need to consult my colleagues, excuse me, Monsieur Leussot.’

He left the counter without waiting for a response and wove his way between the tables. His gaze swept over Madame Lefort and Madame Menez who were sitting in the furthest corner and who nodded at him slightly bashfully. Solenn Nuz was standing at their table. Dupin supposed they were talking about how they could put him and his colleagues up. It made him uncomfortable. And Anjela Barrault, who had plumped for the next table, had now seen the Commissaire too and threw him a bold look.

He sat down with his colleagues.

‘We’ve been – considering – eating something,’ Riwal said cautiously. As if he wanted to sound it out first.

It still seemed inappropriate to Dupin somehow – although even he was ravenous, if truth be told, and besides, what were they meant to do? It was clear they would be spending the evening and night here in any case. And this was the only place there would be something to eat. No Amiral, nothing.

‘Fine.’

It was a grumpy but acceptable ‘fine’. Riwal looked visibly relieved. Le Coz positively jumped to his feet. Riwal likewise, a moment later.

They spoke almost in unison. ‘We’re getting ourselves a cotriade. Shall we get you one, Monsieur le Commissaire?’

Dupin gave in (only grumbling a little bit now). To his own stomach, more than anything.

‘Riwal? And a bottle of red wine. The cooled pinot noir.’

That was the best with fish.

Riwal’s eyes gleamed, even though he made an effort to hide it.

The two of them took up a position in the little queue that had now formed in front of the counter.

Something wonderful had just occurred to Dupin – if he wouldn’t be contactable all evening and night, then he wouldn’t be able to contact anyone either, not even the Prefect! Suddenly he couldn’t suppress a grin.

Le Coz and Riwal had apparently agreed that only one of them would queue up. Riwal came back and sat up straight.

‘What are we going to do now, chief?’

‘We have a large proportion of the suspects here. This is going to be an interesting night, Riwal,’ Dupin paused, ‘we’re best off watching and listening. Perhaps the murderer is sitting just a few metres away from us. Just like he or she was sitting here the night before last…’

Riwal looked around furtively.

‘Do you have a hunch now?’

Dupin laughed.

‘I suggest that after we eat, we sit down at a table with everyone who is stranded here.’

‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’

‘We’ll see.’

Dupin was in a strange mood, which was also due, at least in part, to his worryingly low blood sugar levels.

Le Coz came back holding a large tray with a bottle of water and the wine on it. Three glasses.

‘The drinks. Madame Nuz is bringing the cotriade.’

‘Great.’

Dupin finally gave in to being extremely hungry. He took the bottle of wine, poured some for Riwal and Le Coz, then for himself, and toasted with ‘Yec’hed mat’ (he was always very proud of that) – then drank the whole glassful in one go. The others concentrated on the wine too. It had been a long day for everyone. Nobody said a word.

It didn’t take long for Solenn and Louann Nuz to bring two trays with three ceramic bowls of cotriade on them, several little bowls of baguette toasted – in salted butter! – and the ‘secret sauce’. In fact this was essentially a vinaigrette which varied depending on the family, village and region. Dupin had drunk his second glass of wine just as quickly as the first before he’d even taken his first bite. It was this very moment that Goulch’s joke crossed his mind: that bottles were unfortunately smaller than usual on the Glénan.

Dupin felt decidedly better. The fish stew – you could never say fish soup – smelt indescribable. Dupin recognised all of his favourite fish: angler fish, sea bass, red mullet, gilt head, pollack, cod, hake and sole, his favourite mussels: praires, scallops, blue mussels, palourdes grises and even better – palourdes roses – along with langoustines of various sizes and crab. It was in fact a huge, deep soup bowl with an impressive mountain towering upwards. More hurriedly than he’d intended, he poured the sauce over the fish and the potatoes. And ate. He tasted the whole sea. Incredible – the fish, but especially the broth, a concentrate that had been reduced for hours and hours.

Rudely, he hadn’t even noticed that Madame Nuz was still standing next to them. Silently. She could see that they liked it.

‘Sorry, Madame. This is incredibly delicious. The best cotriade I’ve ever eaten. And I’ve eaten many.’

At times like these, when he had drunk some wine, it sometimes happened that Commissaire Dupin got a bit dramatic in his phrasing, without noticing it. He realised he should be careful about more wine.

‘I spoke to Madame Lefort. You can have the apartment tonight. You’re to arrange everything directly with her.’

‘Thanks very much, that is terribly kind.’

Madame Nuz turned around.

‘Excuse me, Madame Nuz – I have a question.’

She turned back around to him immediately.

‘Of course.’

‘This may sound unusual – but do you think we could all sit together soon? All of the residents of the island and the regulars. Once everyone has eaten.’

Madame Nuz smiled her typical smile. In agreement.

‘We’d best come to your table then, Monsieur le Commissaire.’

‘Let’s do it that way.’

Madame Nuz went back to the counter. Dupin turned his attention back to the fish stew once more. And to the third glass of wine, which he swore would be his last of the evening.

They ate the cotriade right down to the last morsel – they really were large portions – without exchanging a single word with each other. Rapt. And despite the tense situation, a little bit blissful.

*   *   *

Every two or three minutes there came a hefty bang. Unpredictably, but never at long intervals. It sounded as if something big and powerful was smacking into the rear side of the building. The bangs were muffled, but were accompanied by high-pitched, metallic sounds that were impossible to identify.

The storm had picked up even more in the last half hour. It must have reached crazy speeds by now. The noise in the stone building had increased too, it was now almost as loud here as it had been in the wooden annexe. Dupin had stood up once and gone to the door, wanting, without thinking too much about it, to see how it looked outside. ‘Don’t do that!’ Solenn Nuz had called across the room at the last moment. She had called out in a friendly way, but it was still an embarrassing scene. Dupin then remembered how Anjela Barrault had come into the bar – and realised what would happen if an even stronger squall blew through the open door. He walked to a little window on the right and looked out. He couldn’t see a thing. No world. Nothing. Just a jet-black hole. Visibility disappeared after the first centimetres. If you focussed your gaze directly on the windowpane, the rain running down the glass made it look as if someone were spraying the window with a garden hose on full power. Dupin had never experienced a storm like it. They were completely at its mercy, there was nothing but these few old walls around them. The atmosphere had changed, the storm was playing on their nerves. Just a few voices and conversations were still to be heard at the tables. Even the underwater archaeologists had become noticeably quieter, having been by far the most boisterous at first. Only the people who lived in this world were not showing any sign of emotion in particular, least of all Solenn Nuz.

It was very cramped at the square tables they had put together to make space for everyone to sit. Solenn Nuz was on Dupin’s right, Leussot next to her; to his left Anjela Barrault, Riwal next to her, Madame Menez and Louann Nuz diagonally opposite and directly opposite Muriel Lefort, with Tanguy and Le Coz next to her.

‘What is that? Those bangs?’

Riwal’s edginess was visible.

‘Odd things sometimes happen during big storms,’ Leussot grinned.

‘Groac’h’s greedy hand, it’s knocking.’

Kilian Tanguy, suddenly taking on an unprecedented cheeky tone, had his fun too. ‘Or it’s the knocking that comes before the ancient disembodied voice. If she calls your name, you have no choice. She leads you to the Baie des Trépassés, the Bay of the Deceased. A boat is waiting for you. It’s low in the water and seems to be heavily laden and yet it’s totally empty. The Skiff of the Dead is waiting for your crossing. A sail hoists, as though by a ghostly hand, and you are tasked with steering it safely to the Île de Sein. As soon as the skiff reaches the island, the souls leave it. Then you may come back, to your family. Everything is just a shadow, but you are never the same.’

Tanguy opened his eyes wide, his face contorting into a grimace.

‘And that’s a lucky fate. If you’re unlucky, it’s shadowy Ankou himself who knocks, messenger of death and graveyard watchman, a skeleton veiled in a black cloak holding a scythe. On nights like this you can hear his ancient cart creaking.’

Leussot and Tanguy were acting out a grim duet.

‘Or there’s the dead themselves, the lost souls who trick you malevolently. On stormy nights they pretend to be sailors who have run into difficulties to lure the living out to sea.’

Dupin knew these stories by now, not all of them – that was impossible – but a great number. For hundreds, for thousands of years, people had been telling them to each other here at the storm-tossed End of the World and to this day they were ‘real’. No Roman civilisation, no Christianisation, no Modern Age, no Enlightenment or any other fleeting innovation had been able to change anything about that. The large ‘Festivals Paroles’ where story-tellers gave dramatic recitations of the old epics, sagas, myths and legends had been in fashion again in the last few years. If these legends were typically Breton like little else, Dupin thought, what was even more typical was the wonderful way Bretons then suppressed the terror of these stories in their lives. The way they found very practical, very distinctive (and not infrequently: delicious) rites to minimise the terror and to incorporate it into life – for instance on All Hallows’, crêpes were baked for the lost souls, huge numbers of crêpes.

It was clear Riwal did not find any of this funny. Le Coz’s face betrayed noticeable anxiety too – and Dupin had to admit, that in places like this, in atmospheres like this, these stories had much more of an effect than usual.

But Leussot was already relenting.

‘In daylight we’ll see what was causing that noise. Believe us, we’re not in danger. It’s is completely normal.’

He had said this seriously and soothingly, and Riwal’s facial expression really did relax a little, even though it wasn’t clear what ‘completely normal’ meant.

Dupin had been expecting a lot from the idea of bringing everyone together at one table. However, the conversation was faltering – more specifically, apart from the gothic duet, no conversation of any kind had got anywheresince they had been sitting here. Now and again, somebody uttered a sentence that nobody really responded to. Most of them said nothing at all, not even those who usually talked a lot. And Dupin no longer felt – physically or mentally – capable of conducting a ‘group interview’ or continuing to stimulate the conversation. It had probably been a ridiculous idea anyway. The silence was surely only because none of those present knew where the Commissaire was going with this. It was an artificial situation.

‘And Lucas wanted to establish a tourist’s paradise here!’

Leussot burst out laughing. None of the others laughed with him. It seemed macabre.

‘My brother went out into a storm like this,’ Muriel Lefort stated suddenly, emotionlessly.

At first, this sentence also died away without any response.

‘Quite a few people have gone out into a storm from here, wanting to make it to the mainland. Thought they could handle anything.’

This was the very first time Anjela Barrault had spoken up.

‘But they hadn’t had sedatives administered to them.’

Leussot sounded aggressive. His gaze had darkened for a moment. Dupin’s hopes were raised, he had been counting on something like this. He waited. But nothing happened. Leussot regained his composure and it didn’t seem as though anyone wanted to respond.

‘How often has it happened that someone set out too late from here?’

Dupin knew that it was an awkward sentence. He didn’t care. Maybe something was going to be revealed after all.

‘It was mainly sailors stopping off here and underestimating the situation. Five years ago a baker from Trégunc, who was very experienced at sea,’ Tanguy seemed embarrassed, ‘that was particularly bad, he made the best baguette for miles around.’

‘The most tragic was that time with the niece of the institute Director, Le Berre-Ryckeboerec. Alice. Three years ago, with her husband. Just married. And,’ Muriel Lefort glanced at Solenn Nuz, ‘Jacques of course, ten years ago.’

‘Le Berre-Ryckeboerec’s niece?’ Dupin butted in.

‘Yes. That was dramatic. She was in the process of becoming a professional sailor. I trained her. A terrible loss. She was never found.’

‘Never?’

‘Never.’

‘How did the Director cope with that?’

‘She was his elder brother’s daughter, I don’t think that they were very close. He and his brother. But only he himself knows that.’

Muriel Lefort was clearly at pains to be accurate.

Dupin waited to see if the conversation would continue to develop.

In vain.

‘Thank you all. That was an – interesting conversation.’

There was no point. Dupin could not go on. He didn’t want to do go on. It was half past eleven now. And it had become four glasses of wine in the end. And, of the wine Riwal had poured out for him – despite a clear look declining it – he’d already drunk half.

Besides, it was still going to be a long time before they were in bed – somewhere. The accommodation surely still needed to be prepared. And, above all, they would need to go through the storm now. A good hundred metres.

To the others, even Riwal and Le Coz, the breaking up of the group had obviously appeared abrupt, they seemed unsure what to do. Only Anjela Barrault and Solenn Nuz stood up without hesitation.

‘Good night all,’ Dupin said and turned to Madame Lefort.

‘Thank you for making your apartment available to us.’

‘No problem. I’m glad to do it. It might be a bit cramped.’

‘We’ll manage.’

Dupin was by no means as easy-going as his answer sounded. The idea of potentially having to sleep in the same room as Riwal and Le Coz was horrifying to him.

Muriel Lefort tried to smile. Dupin couldn’t even manage the attempt any more.

*   *   *

Commissaire Dupin lay in bed. More specifically: he was lying on a barely fifty-centimetre wide, aluminium fold-out bed that he had pushed right next to the front door. He had covered himself with two large beach towels. Le Coz was sleeping in the only proper bed in the tiny bedroom under the roof, ‘ready for duty and dressed’ as he emphasised, somewhat coyly and also sopping wet. Riwal had retired to the sofa that stood directly in front of the panorama window.

Dupin, with his fold-out bed, had sought to put some distance between himself and the sofa, insofar as that was possible. The gap wasn’t big. He wouldn’t hear any of the noises that Riwal might make in his sleep anyway, because the rain and storm were still pelting against the shutters outside the window, causing an infernal racket here too. Even as a child, on school trips to countryside camps near Chartres, Dupin had hated having to sleep in a room with other people. Whenever they went to the Jura to visit his father’s family, who lived in a tiny backwater, he had had to sleep in his cousins’ room. Three cousins (essentially very nice), all older, and him, split over two beds. That’s also why he had a hang up about this, that much was clear.

He still had wet hair. Even his polo-shirt was wet, but he was in no mood to take it off, it had been unpleasant enough taking off his trousers and hanging them over a chair to dry. But what was really worrying was the state of his red notebook. He had been too tired to look carefully at the extent of the water damage. But it didn’t look good. It was even worse for the Petit Indicateur des Marées – it was absolutely sodden.

They had been soaked to the bone, all of three of them, as well as Madame Lefort and Madame Menez, when they had ventured out of the Quatre Vents to battle the hundred metres to the houses. It had been crazy. They had walked in single file, one close behind the other, so that they were touching at every step. Muriel Lefort had walked in front because she knew the way best. The short path had taken them a full five minutes. After just a few seconds, the rain had been forced through even the thickest material by the gusts of wind. And it had not just been rain – after only a metre or two Dupin noticed that the water running down his face and into his mouth tasted salty. Sea spray was scattering like mist and mixing with the rain. The surf around them must have been metres high. Dupin had been glad not to be able to see that.

It was half past midnight now and even though Dupin was absolutely exhausted, he was under no illusion that he’d be able to fall asleep quickly.

The day was going through his head and it seemed like the longest day of his life. Mostly, he was, of course, thinking about what had happened to Le Menn. And the complete failure of the round-table in the Quatre Vents just now. A few times he saw the leaping dolphins, which now seemed like a surreal vignette. But something had crossed his mind. Something had occurred to him, a detail from the conversation just now, that had only come to seem significant little by little and that had resulted in an – as yet formless, unclear – thought. It was just an idea. One that was pure speculation. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Georges Dupin’s thoughts became more and more tangled and incoherent.