Murder on Brittany Shores (22 page)

‘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.