Murder on Brittany Shores (6 page)

It occurred to Dupin that he needed to call Claire. Wanted to. That's how it was, if he were honest: he
wanted
to call her. He had arranged to speak to Claire on the phone a few weeks ago. He had called her at the beginning of April, she had been on her way into the clinic and they had agreed to talk again soon, but for longer next time. They had also done this after Christmas last year when they had spoken at greater length – also considering whether they might not meet up, but they obviously hadn't trusted themselves then. He wanted this. He wanted to see Claire. It had become clear to him in the last few weeks. Not that it wasn't clear to him earlier, but not to such an extent. None of the relationships he had begun since the break-up with Claire – and there had been quite a few –had become serious. Not because they weren't amazing women, but because it always became clear to him suddenly that it wasn't working. Not even last year with the art historian, who had helped him with a spectacular case and whom he'd met several times since. It had been really lovely. And they had been in the
Océanopolis.
And had visited Dupin's beloved penguins. Then she had gone to Montreal at short notice, an offer from the university, but in all honesty that wasn't the reason why it didn't go any further.

During the last two phone calls with Claire, Dupin had felt for the first time that she was also genuinely thinking of them seeing each other again. Dupin picked up his mobile and dialled her number, which he still knew off by heart. There was a pause.

‘Hello, you've reached the voicemail of Dr Claire Chauffin of the surgical department at Hôpital Georges Pompidou. Please leave a message.'

She had forwarded her phone's voicemail to her clinic. As she nearly always did. Dupin hesitated.

‘I – I'll call again.'

He hung up abruptly.

He was well aware this was not the ideal message. Dupin hoped she would at least recognise his voice. The connection, he realised, had not been the best.

She
would
recognise it. Without doubt. And – he had called.

*   *   *

While enjoying the legendary lobster, a question constantly bothered the Commissaire in spite of himself. It had been going round and round in his head since Nolwenn's last call and he'd been trying to push it aside more and more forcefully since then. In vain. He would have to redirect his thoughts somewhere else more forcefully.

He fixed his gaze on a boat that had just approached the quay which didn't look like the others. It was larger, longer – perhaps fifteen metres he estimated. It had superstructures that looked industrial. The sun beat down. He could have done with a cap.

‘Oh, crap.'

It was no use. Distracting himself wasn't working. He had spoken in a low voice, but a few people turned around to look at him. He reached for the phone, his mood almost as bad as it had been that morning. Dupin knew that people said he was a little surly and bad-tempered from time to time – he'd heard ‘contrary' once on his last case and he'd liked this expression best. Depending on his mood, he reacted to these kinds of comments in a conciliatory, self-deprecating or even a somewhat gruff way, but in general he considered this claim completely unreasonable.

‘Nolwenn?'

‘Monsieur le Commissaire?'

‘The ship belonging to that mattress entrepreneur, which was found in Bénodet. Has he been heard from by now? I mean, has he got in touch?'

‘I don't know. The Prefect was reassured when he heard that Konan's boat was safe in the harbour. I'll ask whether there's been any word from him in the meantime.'

‘And Konan's acquaintance? Has anyone heard from him? And does anyone know why the ship is in Bénodet and not in Sainte-Marine? And who actually saw this boat in the harbour and why did they report it?'

‘I don't have the faintest idea.'

‘Do we know the name of this friend?'

‘No.'

‘Does he have a boat too?'

‘As far as I know, they always went out in Yannig Konan's boat. Do you want me to clarify all of these points?'

Dupin didn't even know. Everything was so mysterious anyway. He was worrying about a friend of the Prefect's whom Nolwenn considered a criminal and this despite the fact that, as yet, no conclusive evidence of any kind existed that there was any reason to worry. Konan was probably just with a woman. Some sleazy affair.

‘I'm going to finish my lobster now.'

‘Your lobster?'

‘Lobster.'

‘You're in the
Quatre Vents?
'

‘Correct.'

‘Lobster from the Glénan is the best in the world. Good thing you're there. If you need anything, ask Solenn Nuz. She's the owner of the
Quatre Vents.
She knows everything. Knows everyone. The Glénan are her kingdom.'

‘Her kingdom?'

‘Oh yes.'

‘What's that meant to mean?'

‘You'll see. Solenn Nuz bought the
Quatre Vents
from the council ten years ago with her husband, Jacques. A passionate diver. The diving school already belonged to him, but they still lived on the mainland at that time. Nobody wanted to have the old boathouse, it was empty for almost seven years. Everyone thought it would be too tough to open a restaurant out there. – Have you met Solenn Nuz yet?'

‘No.'

‘Then I'm sure you'll have met one of her two daughters. Louann and Armelle, they work in the bar too. You can barely tell the three of them apart, they look so similar, it's amazing. One lives with her mother on the archipelago, the other with her boyfriend on the mainland, but she's often there. They have a cottage on the island, diagonally behind the sailing school.'

Dupin imagined it was not an easy life out here.

‘And the husband, the diver?'

‘Oh, it's a sad story. Drowned. Just after they'd bought the
Quatre Vents
and were about to move to the Glénan. It was their great shared dream. Solenn went to the islands anyway. She rented out the club. To a girlfriend of hers.'

During his years of close cooperation with Nolwenn, Dupin had become used to her knowing a huge amount about a huge number of people from Cornouaille – the coast between the most western point in France, the Pointe du Raz, and Quimperlé – without making the least bit of fuss about it. Sometimes he was gobsmacked though, and and a question slipped out.

‘And how do you know all this?'

‘The ‘End of the World' isn't big, Monsieur le Commissaire. And also, my husband…'

‘…once did a a few jobs for Solenn Nuz.'

‘That's right.'

Dupin had no idea what Nolwenn's husband did for a living – he had also decided early on never to ask – but his job was clearly of a universal nature. There couldn't be many people in the region, Dupin reckoned, for whom Nolwenn's husband hadn't ‘done a few jobs'.

‘She is an attractive woman. Dour. A rugged beauty. Stayed young. Very young.'

Dupin wasn't sure what Nolwenn meant by that. Or why they had even been talking about the owner of the bar for minutes on end.

He allowed a pause to develop.

‘Forget I called, Nolwenn.'

Nolwenn was familiar with every detail of Dupin's abrupt shifts.

‘Then let's speak later.'

‘I'll be in touch.'

Nolwenn had hung up.

Dupin still had the phone to his ear and had only just pushed the red button to hang up when it rang again. He answered automatically.

‘Monsieur le Commissaire?'

‘Riwal?!'

‘You were engaged again. I wanted to say that the bodies are being brought to the pathologist's office by helicopter now, if you're okay with that. We can't get anything more done here. Savoir can't either. He needs them in his lab. He's pestering.'

‘Of course. Is there any news? Missing persons reports? Something on the shipwreck?'

‘Not yet.'

‘But how can that be? Surely the three of them have been missed.'

‘They could be from anywhere. Maybe they were foreign nationals. Dutch, German, English or Parisians taking a trip along the coast. Lots of people do that. If they were holidaying here on their own boat or on a rented one, it could take a while for them to be missed. And then for someone to call the police.'

That was true. Dupin's brow furrowed and he rubbed his temple with his right hand.

‘The
Bir
is at the Méaban now. There's some stuff floating in the water between the cliffs, probably plastic mainly. Still nothing directly indicating a wrecked boat. They're taking a good look at everything now. Kadeg and I can come over to you on the
Luc'hed
now. And then go round the boats in the chamber and ask questions. About whether anyone noticed anything. Even if it's highly unlikely to come to anything.'

‘Over to me?'

‘Absolutely.'

‘Feel free.'

Dupin said these words slowly – he had been thinking about something else as he spoke. Frankly, he didn't know what he was still doing on Saint-Nicolas, or indeed on the Glénan at all – except that it was very beautiful here, he was eating the best lobster of his life and the coffee was perfect. He could just as easily fly back with Dr Savoir and coordinate everything from Concarneau – which had the distinct advantage of meaning not having to get onto another boat today.

‘Are you still there, Monsieur le Commissaire?'

‘Riwal – the helicopter is to pick me up. In half an hour, from Saint-Nicolas. You need to take the bodies on board first of course, I'm sure that will take a while.'

Riwal's answer, when it came, was hesitant.

‘All right, there's nothing more for you to do here. I'll arrange that.'

‘And you can start the interviews on the boats straight away. You really don't need to come to Saint-Nicolas first.'

He would still have the entire half hour to himself. Be able to finish his meal in peace.

He hung up.

Dupin looked around. The terrace had filled up all of a sudden. Almost all of the tables were full now, including one of the two closest to him. The couple must have heard what he'd said. Dupin put on an ostentatiously friendly smile, which didn't do a thing to change the fact that his neighbours were giving him suspicious looks.

It really was all go. The sailing and diving season had already begun. Every year the Atlantic made the crucial leap from ten or twelve degrees to fourteen or fifteen (then in June or July the leap to eighteen degrees and, in Breton ‘heat spells', sometimes even up to nineteen or twenty. Apparently in 2006, the sea in Port Manech was actually twenty-two degrees celsius on the 23rd and 24th of August!) The people he could see were clearly water-sports lovers, mostly between the ages of twenty and forty. For the anglers too, the best seasons were now, in May, and then in September, when the huge schools of mackerel appeared. Then you only needed to let your line down into the sea with nothing more than a hook and they would already be biting – with the number five hook lines that they used here, there were five fat fish per line. Dupin had heard many stories about it.

He ate the last piece of lobster, the flesh from the broken open pincer. He had saved the best till last, he'd done that even as a child. And he drank the last mouthful of the very good, very cold, white wine.

Dupin leaned back. He picked up the newspaper. Almost the entire front page of
Ouest France
– one of the two large regional papers that Dupin loved and meticulously studied every morning – was devoted to the thirty-six dead wild boar, as it had been for the last few days. Thirty-six wild boar had been found dead on a beach in the north, in the Côtes-d'Armor
département.
Killed by poisonous gases released during the decomposition of green algae. It was a sad report and one which provoked extreme rage. The death of a wild boar touched Bretons to their core, they loved their wild boar –
Asterix and Obelix
was pure truth. For years, the plague of algae had been one of the most discussed topics in Brittany. It was also one of Riwal's favourite topics – just last Friday afternoon he had got worked up for a full half hour (‘an absolute disgrace!'). The over-fertilisation of the fields through the years and the run-off of the nitrates through the streams and rivers into the sea often resulted in large algae build-ups in the summer months. Some beaches were strewn with it for hundreds of metres. It was harmless really, edible in fact, it only became dangerous if it decomposed in the summer sun. This year the first of the algae had already been washed up by the end of April, earlier than ever before. Suddenly the whole of France and half of Europe were discussing it. Maybe the deaths of the wild boar would actually affect the supremacy of the farming lobby and the barefaced way many politicians played it down. Maybe the wild boars would change things – it would be a very Breton story.

Dupin's phone rang. Nolwenn again.

‘Konan's friend is called Lucas Lefort. A big name in Brittany. Co-owner of the sailing school
Les Glénans.
The most famous sailing school in the world! It belongs to him and his sister, the two of them inherited it. Also, Lefort used to be a professional sailor himself. He was a member of the crew of the
Explorer IV
that won the Admiral's Cup eight years ago, the toughest and most significant sailing competition for ocean-going yachts. The open class – the unofficial world championship. Only Bretons on the team!'

Nolwenn did actually draw breath here, going on a little more calmly.

‘Konan goes with him on his trips. The headquarters on the islands are right next to the
Quatre Vents.
He also has a house on Saint-Nicolas, one of those houses that are very ugly on the outside, towards Bananec.'

Dupin delved into the topic reluctantly.