The Fleur De Sel Murders Read online

  “I specifically mean the salt itself—what are you afraid is wrong with it?”

  “You could add substances that would make the salt unusable, even if the substance itself were harmless. The entire harvest. Dyes, for example. Or substances that would damage the floors of the salt marshes. Potentially for years to come. Or even worse, toxic substances. They wouldn’t just destroy one harvest, but the reputation of the salt marshes for years and years in all of the Guérande.”

  Of course. Lilou had written about the “salt war.” Dupin remembered the article well. Somebody might have it in for the whole place. The salt gardens of the Guérande. But if you wanted to damage the entire White Land, you would probably go about it differently. And if Dupin understood correctly, the Guérande didn’t put up stiff competition anymore anyway.

  “We’re not working on that assumption at the moment. But we’re checking everything, of course,” Rose said calmly.

  “And from our point of view, we still need to rule out the tiniest potential risk,” Cordier said in a tone that brooked no disagreement.

  Dupin thought hard. It was conceivable, this possibility had come up this morning, after all: somebody here wanted to harm someone else. Wanted to harm Daeron. An individual, a group, a cooperative, a business. Different forms and levels of sabotage were possible.

  “So how would you go about sabotaging someone else’s salt harvest?”

  Dupin was very interested in this. They needed to think outside the box.

  “There would be many different substances for that. But you’d be able to detect those. The most malicious thing would be to add water during critical stages; that could never be detected, it—”

  “Fresh water?”

  Maxime Daeron had mentioned this very thing to them earlier.

  The food chemist looked at Dupin in surprise. Only now did he notice that her lips were made up in the exact same shade of red as the circle on her T-shirt.

  “Harvests and hence incomes can be sabotaged by fresh water. But as I said: if you try to shoot a police officer dead to stop him finding out what you’re doing, there might be something more controversial going on. Not involving four barrels of drinking water.”

  That was in fact what Rose and Dupin would have said. This was exactly what was bothering them too. Or it did Dupin, anyway.

  “So we do have cause for grave concern,” Cordier concluded.

  “And we have—”

  Dupin was interrupted by Rose’s mobile. She stepped aside and picked up. You could just hear her saying, “Okay, Chadron,” before lowering her voice.

  Céline Cordier didn’t seem in the least impressed by the interruption, carefully taking her own phone out of her jeans pocket and starting to type something.

  Dupin had begun to balance his way across the ridiculously narrow footbridge to the pool in front of them, where the barrels lay. There probably wouldn’t be anything more to see close-up. The experts had done an initial examination and hadn’t spotted anything. After a few steps he realized that someone was behind him. He looked round. It was Rose.

  “Chadron. The forensics team have found fingerprints in Lilou’s parents’ house, on the door to the garden, and they’re not hers. We’re collecting prints from everyone we’ve already come across—here in Gwenn Rann.”

  Before Dupin could say anything, Rose carried on—returning to their earlier topic so abruptly it was as though the interruption of the phone call had never happened:

  “Uncovering sabotage carried out by independent paludiers or ones belonging to the cooperative could damage the reputation of a large business and its director who had been aware of it, or even ordered it, to such an extent that whole careers would be destroyed—and, even worse, some big plans. That would be enough of a motive.”

  Her voice was low, but extremely firm. It was on the tip of Dupin’s tongue to come back to the fingerprints again, just to make a point. It was potentially not insignificant news, but they would just have to wait. And what Rose said was correct.

  Dupin had reached the end of the footbridge. There was nothing more to see close-up. He knelt down and Rose continued:

  “It would be the end for the cooperative too, or an individual independent. In any case, to do something like this, you would have to be desperate or cold-blooded, and once you’d started, well then—”

  She broke off. Dupin knew what she meant. He had witnessed dozens of stories like that. Oddly, setting foot over a line that was not too serious in itself was sometimes enough to produce the psychological willingness required to do worse things and, interestingly, these things no longer seemed so bad. More like “necessary adjustments.” Yes, they probably ought to seriously consider the sabotage of the salt harvests—regardless of motive it was potentially a systematic scheme and Lilou Breval had stumbled across it. But Dupin also felt they needed to keep looking for other potential theories.

  He turned round, a signal to Rose on the narrow footbridge that it was time to do likewise and pick their way back the way they had come.

  A few moments later they were standing with Céline Cordier again, who casually finished what she was typing before putting the smartphone into the back pocket of her jeans again.

  Dupin still had some questions that were bothering him.

  “Are there substances or chemicals that could be added during the manufacture of salt to increase the amounts produced or the quality of the salt? Half-legal, half-illegal means?”

  “No. Not with sea salt. It’s not created, it’s extracted. Just released, you could say. Natural evaporation works perfectly efficiently and can’t be increased in any way. And certainly not by adding chemicals. The composition of the salt is perfect here—there’s nothing you could add to improve it.”

  Cordier was almost speaking in a normal tone of voice now; the aggression had vanished.

  “What about any methods used outside France or Europe? Is there anything out there that someone here might illegally add to keep up with them?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that. But they mine salt deposits from the earth. That’s irrelevant in cultivating sea salt.”

  “Are there any organic threats to the salt marshes that need to be kept in check? Bacteria? Like with mussels and oysters?”

  Rose was right, you could approach it from this angle too.

  “No. Apart from salt-loving or ‘halophilic’ bacteria—which are harmless and sometimes responsible, along with the clay, for the pools’ intense red, pink, or purple coloring—bacteria have no chance. Salt is biochemically resistant.”

  There was a perplexed pause.

  “Listen, we’re looking into the complete suspension of production,” Cordier said with bureaucratic frigidity. “The existing stock would only be released for sale following thorough testing.” Her afterthought sounded surprisingly empathetic: “I’m aware that even a temporary closure of the salt marshes would really affect the paludiers. But this is about protecting the consumers. And that takes priority.”

  “There’s always someone who profits from a catastrophe. Someone who has an interest in such things,” Rose said pensively. Which made it sound dramatic. A moment later she was looking at her watch: “We’ve got to go.”

  They had an appointment.

  * * *

  The newly built Centre du Sel was impressive. And tasteful. Made entirely from natural materials. Untreated oak, pale granite, glass. Angular, nesting structures but not outrageously overdone. An exhibition entitled “The Magic World of Salt” was on display in the large hall. One of the things they’d done was to re-create a whole harvesting pool, as well as a miniature salt marsh. There were also “experience rooms” and display boards (“The History of Salt,” “Salt for Gourmets”), a café, and the “boutique de sel.” Along with the various salts and salt products (mustard with fleur de sel, chocolate with fleur de sel, relaxing baths with fleur de sel…) there were also books, posters, DVDs, and magazines in the boutique. There was no sign of the
salt world’s “modest” financial conditions in the Centre du Sel.

  A staff member had led the two commissaires into a conference room, not far from the “experience rooms.” Madame Laurent and Madame Bourgiot were sitting at a pale oak table that was really too big for the not-very-big room.

  “Where were you last night—both of you? From eight o’clock onward? And during the night?”

  Never in his entire police career had Dupin ever begun an investigative interview with this sentence. Rose had done it, in her pleasant way, which made two things clear: this is a routine question and does not mean that we suspect you—and in the event we do in fact suspect you, you’d better brace yourself.

  “And tell us who can confirm it.”

  Madame Laurent slowly brushed her hair—chin-length, dark blond with golden blond highlights, straight but with impressive volume—away from her tanned face with her right hand and settled it elegantly behind her ear. On the left-hand side, her hair kept falling across her face, no doubt the whole point of this asymmetric hairstyle. She was probably in her early fifties, an attractive woman wearing a dark pantsuit very similar to Rose’s. Unlike Rose, she was not wearing a blouse, but a silk top with a deep V-neck, a pale lilac shade that suited her.

  “I had things to do in Vannes until around twenty past seven, a meeting with a sausage producer—Monsieur Alain Doncieux, he owns the company—and then I drove home. I live at the gulf. On the Île d’Arz. I sat in the garden and then read in a lounge chair, drank wine, and looked happily out over the gulf from time to time. Until almost midnight. With this wonderful weather we’re having.”

  An accurate answer, given very competently. Madame Laurent beamed at Rose. And added: “Do you believe there’s a link between the death of the journalist and the shooting at the salt marshes last night? There’s talk of murder in the media and that they’re presumably related.”

  As she so often did, Rose didn’t seem to realize that someone had asked her a question, which Dupin had long since recognized as a tactic.

  “Was anyone at your house? Did you happen to send emails from a computer connected to the landline? So that electronic protocols could prove that you were there? Did you make or receive calls on the landline?”

  The same old spiel. Perfectly friendly, nothing seemed to be for the sake of rhetoric, or even aggressive.

  “As I said: I was reading. Pierre Lemaitre, the winner of the Goncourt Prize. Simply wonderful. And looking out over the water. No emails, no visitors, no phone calls all evening.” She cast a serious glance at Dupin’s bandage, peeping out from underneath his polo shirt. “I got something to eat in the kitchen at one point.” She laughed. “I don’t have an alibi. No witnesses whatsoever. And no neighbors can see me in my garden either. And I live alone.”

  Again she smiled, without a trace of smugness—and hence the highest form of smugness, which actually commanded some respect from Dupin. Madame Bourgiot, on the other hand, was looking over at the head of Le Sel a little nervously. She scooted back and forth on her chair, and it became clear that she was trying not to. The director of the Centre du Sel was young, perhaps early thirties, dark curly hair tied back, heavily made up, wearing a pair of those thick, dark, expensive eyeglass frames. She was wearing a dark suit and excessively high-heeled pumps. Yet she seemed pale next to Madame Laurent. One thing was clear: Madame Laurent was the real boss here.

  “And you, Madame Bourgiot?”

  “I was here. Until maybe quarter past eight, half past. With a colleague—she’s in the bistro today. Since the beginning of September, we’ve only been open till seven. Then I drove home and had dinner with my husband. We live in Le Croisic.” She hesitated for a moment. “Rue de Goélands, near the Mont Esprit.”

  She looked at Dupin now, who still hadn’t said a word, with an uncertain, expectant look.

  Of course he knew the Mont Esprit. It was one of the two “hills”—that’s really what they were called—that had continued forming right up into the nineteenth century. They were due to the gradual buildup of ballast jettisoned by large salt ships in the harbor of Le Croisic so that the ships could then load up the white gold. Henri had told him people were very proud of these hills.

  Rose continued, unperturbed. “Apart from your husband, did anyone see you or speak to you when you came home? Or did you make any phone calls?”

  Madame Bourgiot tried to make eye contact with Madame Laurent, but then she seemed to feel that was inappropriate. She looked at Rose again. Dupin had got his notebook out and was leafing through it distractedly. In the end he hadn’t got a coffee on his way back from the gulf to the White Land. He hadn’t seen anywhere on the journey where he could have stopped quickly without making a fuss. Besides, Rose had been driving close behind him in her big Renault, almost without leaving a gap—he had wondered why she didn’t just overtake him and drive on.

  He had tried Claire’s number four times during the journey—but kept getting her voicemail. That wasn’t good.

  “I spoke to Monsieur Jaffrezic from the cooperative briefly one more time. On my mobile. It was about things for the boutique,” Madame Bourgiot finally said, still looking nervous and unsure.

  “What ‘things’?” Dupin asked brusquely.

  “We’ve sold out of some of the cooperative’s products and urgently need more stock. Quantities in the hundreds. The blends of fleur de sel with various herbs, especially piment d’Espelette.” She suddenly seemed in her element now. “But also the one with lemon and dill. We had placed the orders a full two days before. I hadn’t been able to get hold of him all day. He was expecting my call. During the season, there are often things to deal with in the evenings too. That’s totally normal.”

  Her nervousness seemed to have lessened as she answered, and she was calming down.

  “But the cooperative has its own Centre du Sel, of course, where they sell products. Monsieur Jaffrezic runs it himself.” Dupin noticed his voice sounded a little hoarse. He urgently needed caffeine.

  “Maison du Sel. The cooperative’s one is called Maison du Sel,” the director of the Centre du Sel corrected him. “They sell their salt directly there, that’s true. But this one is the public center, the community one; we sell all of the paludiers’ salt here.” She nodded toward the boutique. “The independents’ salt and the cooperative’s. And of course Le Sel’s. The center is dedicated to the entire salt gardens, it belongs to everyone.”

  “I … excuse me a moment.” Dupin stood up midsentence and walked toward the glass door with all three women’s eyes fixed curiously on him.

  “I’ll be right back.” He left the room, gently closing the glass door behind him and heading straight for the boutique counter and the young woman standing behind it. Dark brown ponytail, a dark blue T-shirt with CENTRE DU SEL printed discreetly on it. Dupin hadn’t realized the three women would clearly see him here. But that didn’t matter now. He wasn’t at his best, his mind wasn’t working properly and he needed it very urgently now. A fully intact mind.

  “Two espressos, please.”

  In fact, he desperately needed to eat something too; he had wondered on the journey whether Rose ever ate at all; perhaps she had stealthily eaten this morning after dropping him off. There was a display cabinet of delicious-looking quiches: tomato and sardine, fresh salmon, baby artichoke, all with a generous sprinkling of fleur de sel—but that might be a little inappropriate in this situation. Without thinking much about it, Dupin reached for the bonbons caramel à la fleur de sel. With less enthusiasm than yesterday, but still: they were seriously handy on the move, real blood sugar boosts and you could eat them discreetly.

  With practiced movements and at impressive speed, the young girl had prepared the two coffees.

  “Tell me, do you see Monsieur Jaffrezic here often? The head of the cooperative?”

  “I know him.” Her voice was confident, determined, an amusing contrast to her fragile appearance. “He comes pretty regularly. Once or twice a week.”<
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  Dupin took a step to one side and began to drink the first coffee in expert sips. It was perfect, absolutely perfect. And not too hot. So he drank the second one immediately.

  “Excellent coffee. And when did Madame Bourgiot leave last night?”

  “Sometime around half past eight. Maybe a bit earlier.”

  Dupin fished a ten-euro note out of his pants pocket, murmured “thanks,” and on his way back to the conference room he opened the packet of candy (a long tube of ten this time, even handier). As he entered the room, he popped one in his mouth and slipped the packet back into his pocket.

  Madame Bourgiot had just finished saying something. She looked at him in bemusement, at Madame Laurent in amusement, and Commissaire Rose didn’t look at him at all.

  “Fine, as discussed, we’ll speak to Monsieur Jaffrezic. I—”

  “In the interview that Lilou Breval conducted with you, one of the things discussed was the conflicting interests and disagreements in the White Land. The battles over the salt marshes, correct? Tell us about them,” Dupin butted in, and surprisingly Rose didn’t stop him. He was back in the zone now, feeling much better. Whether the effect of the caffeine on him was physical or even mainly psychological by now—which was what Nolwenn suspected—it didn’t matter: it was always prompt.

  “It was a long, very good conversation. About the changes we’re seeing everywhere. The White Land hasn’t been spared. An intelligent and committed journalist.”

  Her answer wasn’t bitter. It was relaxed. When they had arrived earlier, Riwal had handed him the interviews and articles that Nolwenn had faxed over and they had skimmed them in the car. There were a few interesting points, although nothing of substance.

  “More specific. We need you to be more specific. You’ve openly stated your intention to take over the salt gardens more or less in their entirety. And that what you’d like best of all is to buy up everything. You already have twenty-five percent. Did Lilou ask about your specific plans? What do they look like?”