The Fleur De Sel Murders Read online

  “Yes, two longer interviews. The one with Maxime Daeron came out three weeks after the long article, so about a year ago. The second one, the interview with Ségolène Laurent, only came out two months ago. In July.”

  Nolwenn had been quick. As always.

  “I want to read them both.”

  “I’ll send them to a police station near you, then they can print them out and bring them to you. It would all be easier with a smartphone; you really should consider using the one in your desk drawer. It would be really useful.”

  He had been having this discussion about smartphones with Nolwenn for a long time and Dupin had no illusions about it: he would lose eventually. In January the commissariat had been kitted out with the latest generation of stylish smartphones that could “do anything” and his two inspectors had been very pleased with them, especially Kadeg; Dupin had refused to use one so far. He could just imagine getting that notification in a dicey situation: “System failure.” You needed a diploma to use the phone he already had. But now was not the time to continue this discussion. Besides, he had Nolwenn, what did he need a smartphone for?

  “Send it to the commissariat in Guérande town. To Riwal. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be at the gulf.”

  “There were also two shorter articles in the Ouest-France relating to the salt marshes. But not by Lilou Breval. One about the new salt. The sel moulin. A silly fad, if you ask me. And one about the extension to the Centre du Sel building. But that was also just a few lines long.”

  “Send me those articles too.”

  “Okay.”

  “And look up whether there were any reports generally, not just in the Guérande, on illegal schemes relating to salt farming. Forbidden or controversial additives, manufacturing processes, whatever.”

  “No problem.”

  “And,” Dupin took out his notebook, “look out for anything interesting on ‘super wide-necked barrels.’ Whether they come up in relation to any criminal activities somewhere. Made by Fasco. Or other companies too. Large barrels.”

  Dupin was aware that this task was extremely vague. However, if there were anything to be found, Nolwenn would find it.

  “You’re not letting up on the barrels. And a good thing too!” Nolwenn’s tone changed. “Monsieur le Commissaire?”

  “Yes?”

  “Claire just tried to get through to you again. I told her the case has changed dramatically and that it’s a murder case now—and also that the préfet officially instructed you to lead the investigation for Finistère, as it’s equally affected. And how upset you are that this happened today of all days. How unlucky it is. But all the same: you should call her.”

  Dupin didn’t yet know when or how, but yes—he needed to call Claire. He wanted to call her, of course, and do everything in his power to make it to Paris that evening.

  “I will. And … thank you, Nolwenn.”

  “It’s a great loss for Brittany. For Breton journalism. She’s irreplaceable! It’s horrific.”

  Dupin was confused for a moment. Nolwenn had abruptly returned to Lilou Breval. He had still been thinking about Claire.

  “Yes—yes, it is.”

  Dupin hung up. The sun beat down even more harshly than before; it was almost unbearable. Everything around him was sparkling brightly. A cap would have been useful; he had a couple of them but never wore them.

  In front of him, the saddest memorial Dupin had ever seen rose up into the sky. It was a well-known story. Hammered into pale gray granite, overgrown with yellow-and-orange lichens and moss, a fisherman’s wife with a child in her arms keeps watch for a husband, never to return. It’s clear she knows he’s not coming back but also that, for all eternity, there is only one thing she can do—or wants to do: keep watch for him, day after day. It stood on a high, round pedestal made of granite, on a small island of black stone, just short of the tip of the headland. You could get there with your feet dry if the tide was very low, while water washed right over it when the tide was coming in. And the woman and child stood amidst the raging sea.

  Dupin turned round. He could see Commissaire Rose through the trees as she bent over the backseat in Lilou Breval’s car fifty meters away. Her Peugeot was on a small, sandy path leading into the patch of woodland. That’s where the perpetrator had parked it. It had been just two minutes’ drive from the Brevals’ house after all.

  It would definitely take a while for a third team from forensics to be on the scene; two teams had already been deployed.

  Rose and Dupin had been doing an initial inspection of the Peugeot when Nolwenn called. The car doors were open when they got there and the car key was missing.

  On first impression, without technical support, there was nothing suspicious about it, nothing at all. It was maddening: so far there were no leads.

  Dupin knew this was a deeply ingrained idiosyncrasy, but on principle he couldn’t stand people listening while he was on the phone, no matter what he was talking about. It was even worse during a case and in this specific situation. So he had walked some distance away and left Rose to examine the rest of the car.

  He walked back slowly. Commissaire Rose was crouched down, still preoccupied by the backseat. To the naked eye, there was nothing unusual so far.

  “Any news?” He heard the words coming to him from the car.

  She hadn’t turned around and Dupin was still a few meters away. Baffling. He thought for a moment, then briefly summarized the phone call with Nolwenn. Rose listened without commenting, as though she wanted to make sure he was reporting everything.

  “We didn’t find any of those interviews at Lilou’s house. Or at her parents’ either,” Dupin concluded his short report.

  “What we do know is this: Lilou Breval was still interested in the White Land recently. Also, we have two more people we know she knew in the salt gardens—and that she had spoken to them. That makes four already. And there was definitely more material than what eventually went to print. There will have been initial drafts, transcripts of the recorded interviews that have more in them,” reasoned Rose, “on her laptop and maybe printed out too. But we haven’t found any of that yet.”

  “The murderer doesn’t know what we know,” Dupin said thoughtfully, but urgently. “There’s no way for them to be sure what leads we’ve actually got and what we think is relevant. They’ll get rid of anything they consider a potential clue.”

  “We’ll do some more digging at the editorial offices. And look at her email account. She might have sent in earlier drafts.” Commissaire Rose turned to the backseat. “So far it’s impossible to say whether she drove herself here or was brought here. Defenseless. Perhaps already severely injured, or even dead. I haven’t found anything that gets us anywhere.”

  The inside of the car looked a little bit like Lilou Breval’s house. On the passenger seat and the backseat there were magazines strewn wildly about, a few books, newspapers, the Ouest-France, and particularly editions of Le Monde diplomatique and Libération. Several glossy journals about garden design. All of this had been Lilou’s life; now it was a meaningless mess.

  Rose was wearing skin-colored silicone gloves again. On her, they almost looked like a fashion accessory. There was no sign of the stresses of the previous night about her clothes or about herself.

  “Virtually sterile.” Dupin was standing in front of the empty trunk.

  “I never use mine either.” Rose shrugged. “There’s always the backseat.”

  Dupin had his Clairefontaine out. Open at his list of people. Each name was circled. Underneath, beside, and above them were key words about the people, a technique that swiftly made the double-page spread confusing. Some names were, for reasons known only to him, circled twice, with wildly scribbled symbols added: exclamation marks, question marks, plus signs, and even things crossed out.

  “I’d like to speak to this food chemist who wants to see us so urgently.” It occurred to Dupin that Kadeg hadn’t even mentioned her name. “We need an
expert. I want to know her general thoughts on the barrels in the salt marshes. And what illegal schemes you might have if you were producing salt.”

  Dupin could feel the feverishness he experienced whenever he was caught up in a complicated case. It was an odd state. In a way, he stepped away from the world every time. He forgot everyday life. So there was nothing but the case and all of his questions, which was a sore point in his relationship with Claire. But at the same time, this was when he was absolutely in the real world, more precisely and clearly than at any other time. Doing just one thing: solving the case.

  “We’ll do that. But first we should talk to the director of Le Sel, Madame Laurent. She lives at the gulf too,” Rose said offhandedly.

  “She lives at the gulf too?”

  “We don’t know yet if it’s her home or a résidence secondaire. A huge number of Bretons have ‘a house at the gulf.’ Not just the wealthy. Many from the Guérande too. It’s nothing unusual.”

  Dupin almost asked whether she was one of them. It had sounded a little that way. Some Concarnese had a house at the gulf too, Dupin knew that. Henri, of course. One of Nolwenn’s brothers and also a sister. The gulf was big—twenty kilometers long from east to west, and fifteen kilometers from the sea to Vannes—and a favorite spot amongst Bretons. They considered the gulf, Dupin had come to understand, as their Mediterranean or, more accurately, their form of Mediterranean; the Mediterranean atmosphere, only better, Atlantic. Or rather, Breton. Also part of the gulf was the beloved Presqu’île de Quiberon, which bordered it on the west side, as did the megalithic menhir-mecca Carnac and the Hoedic Islands off the coast and the “South Sea beauty” Île d’Houat with the “Treac’h ar Goured,” said to be the most spectacular beach in Brittany and, above all of course: the legendary Belle-Île.

  “We should also speak to the head of the Centre du Sel as soon as possible, Madame Bourgiot. And step up our conversation with the director of the cooperative.”

  Rose sounded sinister when she said “step up.” Her “we should” sentences were firm guidelines with no room for discussion. This was how they would proceed, with interviews in this order.

  “Where do you think Lilou Breval was thrown into the water?” Dupin had walked a few meters away from the car.

  Rose straightened up abruptly, took the gloves off, and walked, without saying a word, between the tall stone pines toward the farthest outcrop of the headland. Someone had put up a circular viewing platform here, only slightly raised. It was about thirty meters from the car. Rose didn’t stop until she’d reached the end where there was a low, flat stone wall that was more of a trip hazard than a protective measure. She put her right foot on it, hands in her pants pockets. The water roared right past the outcrop, directly beneath them. Dupin stood next to her, gazing into the gurgling current.

  They remained like this for some time. Then Rose broke the silence, her eyes fixed steadily on the water.

  “Here in the passage there are dips and shallows of up to forty meters. All along the main channel where the water comes in and out. The body could have disappeared forever here. It was highly likely to do so, in fact—and once the low tide had come, it would have dragged it into the Atlantic forever anyway. The currents go out into the open sea for kilometers.” Rose spoke more and more darkly as she went on. “But surely the murderer couldn’t wait for the tide to change.”

  It would have been the perfect spot to choose, as macabre as it sounded: perfect and practical in every way. There was nobody here at night; the closest houses, including Lilou’s parents’ house, were half a kilometer away, small patches of woodland all around.

  Dupin felt dizzy all of a sudden. His gaze was submerged in the eddies. The word “shallows” had always frightened him as a child; it sounded like “shadows” to his ears. Dark, shapeless creatures that pulled you away into the depths. His anxieties about boats had probably started there.

  “Let’s go. The forensics team will be here soon.”

  He desperately needed a coffee. He would pass a place where he could stop off briefly along the way. And he’d be able to take a pill too—the pains in his shoulder had gotten worse again. Maybe there would even be a ham and cheese sandwich.

  * * *

  The compromise had been to pass by the salt marshes where the barrels had been found, not far from Pradel, and meet the food chemist there “briefly.” Dupin had wanted it this way round—Rose the other way. And then they would speak to Madame Laurent, who was having a meeting with Madame Bourgiot anyway, so they had decided to meet them both together. Dupin wondered if he would have to pay later for his mini-victory on the order of business. The very idea of having to investigate with someone had never sat right with Dupin—in practice it was even worse, as he had been forced to realize. Even on the issue of what to do next, or rather, first. An issue—and it was simply one of many—that was always essential in an investigation. Sometimes crucial. Dupin couldn’t simply walk away or drive off like he usually tended to do and follow a hunch—a hunch so deep down inside that even he was barely conscious of it—whenever he felt like it. A hunch he didn’t even have on this case yet. That morning he had been thinking of suggesting to Rose that they split up. He didn’t fully trust her—and on her turf, with her team, she had serious advantages that would leave him in a poor position.

  They had parked their cars on the Route des Marais and walked. Dupin had parked right behind Rose. There had been another Renault in front of Rose’s Renault, the same car, but in jet black.

  “I’ve had Daeron’s salt marshes banned from producing salt until further notice. And this one too, of course, although it’s not being cultivated at the moment. Until there’s no shadow of a doubt that those four barrels and what they contained are completely innocuous.”

  Céline Cordier was standing in front of them, her stance relaxed, in stark contrast to her resolute words. Dupin had a different image in his mind of a state-appointed food chemist. More like a scientist. In a white coat perhaps. Céline Cordier looked like a graphic designer from a trendy agency. A plain blue T-shirt with a bright red circle printed on it, tight faded jeans that made her hip bones stick out, and a pair of dark blue Converse sneakers. Rangy, almost as tall as him, a little lanky—nicely lanky—shoulder-length, layered black hair, amber eyes. Around midthirties.

  “Whatever is going on,” she continued, “it’s clear there is considerable criminal intent at work. A shooting, the murder of a journalist who appears to be linked to it.”

  So the news had already spread. This was to be expected, of course. It had happened in next to no time. The oyster fishermen had found the corpse, someone in the editorial office had been asked about relatives, and so on. And this was a well-known journalist, after all. A murder. And naturally people would draw a link to the shooting yesterday, on the basis alone that he himself had turned up in both places. It was on the radio and in the online editions of the newspapers, it would be in print tomorrow.

  Dupin basically understood the food chemist’s frightened attitude. But her arrogant, demanding manner annoyed him. Clearly it annoyed Rose too.

  “We have not yet been able to confirm the presence of any substance that does not belong here. Our forensic chemists have taken various samples. From different pools. In particular, from the harvest pools.”

  Rose had taken up her usual stance—her right hand in her jacket, the thumb poking out—and was speaking firmly. She had calmly pretended not to hear Cordier’s implicit question as to whether there were any link.

  They were standing on one of the wider footbridges amidst the salt ponds where the barrels had been found. It was clear the harvest pool was not being cultivated; the water was full of algae and easily twenty centimeters deep. Dupin noted with relief that a light breeze had started up again in the White Land, as it often did when the tide was on its way in, clearing the air and making the blue of the sky and every other color more vibrant: the green and flaxen yellow of the grasses and ferns, the c
olors of the shimmering salt pools on their way here; shades of silver, blue, green, as well as red and pink. But above all it touched the intense blue of the four barrels that lay on their sides around the edges of the pool like strange sculptures and made it more dazzling. There was no sign of the seals or any kind of lid. There they were: the mysterious objects Lilou was interested in—they existed, they were real. And yet they remained, for now at least, just as mysterious as before.

  “The situation is too unpredictable for my liking. We’re already running tests in neighboring salt marshes. And we also don’t want to lose any time in—”

  “You’re running what?” Commissaire Rose cut her off sharply.

  “Our own tests. We’ve got to decide whether, over and above the measures taken, all salt marshes are to be shut down, until you or we know something.”

  “All of them? And who is we?”

  “I head up the scientific department in the institute, and my colleague is in charge of the administrative section. In the end, I decide. There are strict regulations about this and I’m staying in touch with Paris, which could make any decision at any time and will abide by my expert report. This is an extremely sensitive food manufacturing center, which, unlike indoor factories, is largely unprotected and left at anyone’s mercy. Tens of thousands of people will consume the salt that is being produced in these salt marshes over the course of just a few weeks.”

  Unimpressed, Rose sighed loudly during Cordier’s explanation. Dupin wanted to get to the point uppermost in his mind at last.

  “So what do you think might have happened, Madame Cordier? Here in the Salt Land? What dodgy, illegal things could have been going on? What might the barrels have contained?”

  “Illegal schemes, acts of revenge, sabotage, outstanding payments, competition. I don’t know. I don’t know these people. I’m the wrong person to speculate.”