Murder on Brittany Shores Read online

  ‘It doesn’t surprise me at all that it was murder.’

  In Maela Menez’s sentence, more thrust out than spoken, there lay deep emotion, which she seemed to have been holding back at first, only for it to come pouring out now.

  ‘If I were capable of the murder and Madame Lefort wasn’t his sister – I would have killed him too, under certain circumstances. He was a disgraceful character. It’s disrespectful to say it, I know. But I don’t care.’

  Dupin turned around and scrutinised Madame Menez with interest. She was a peculiar mixture: the somewhat stilted, somehow old-fashioned way of speaking on the one hand and the rather lively, undeniably pretty looks on the other. Dupin would have put her in her early thirties. There was something extremely determined in her dark eyes – just a few forlorn bright spots blazed in the deep brown of the iris – and in her facial expression. In those eyes there was an impressive, alert intelligence.

  ‘I’ve already heard that Monsieur Lefort was clearly very unpopular.’

  ‘For which there was a multitude of reasons.’

  ‘And for which of these reasons would you have wanted to murder him? For example?’

  She didn’t flinch for a second, even at this pointed phrasing from Dupin.

  ‘I witnessed how he treated Madame Lefort. All these years. It was difficult to bear. I would gladly have intervened, but Madame Lefort didn’t approve of that. The worst of it,’ she paused for a moment and she seemed to be realising for the first time, what she was saying, ‘I mean, it was loathsome, that he corrupted everything that comprised the Glénan at their heart, the original idea, the spirit. He would have destroyed everything without thinking, he wouldn’t have cared a jot about it. He was selfish and his only interest was said to be megabucks.’

  After the brief pause, her voice reached an impressive climax again.

  ‘He wanted the jetset lifestyle. He had…’

  ‘Maela, you shouldn’t speak like that. You know that. Especially now – he’s dead. Murdered.’

  Even though it sounded like an admonishment, Muriel Lefort had not been brusque at all. She was standing on one of the top steps.

  ‘I know. But it’s the truth. And the police should know everything.’

  ‘But we don’t have a clue whether the murder attempt was meant for my brother. It could just as easily have been meant for one of the other men. Maybe even two of them or all three – in fact that’s how it must have been. Otherwise the murderer would have had to tolerate the death of innocent people.’

  Muriel Lefort seemed to have composed herself again to some extent. And her interjection was justified. And important. Here on the islands everyone and everything was automatically fixated on Lucas Lefort. Everyone assumed that the motive for murder was to be found in his life. Which of course was only because almost nobody knew Yannig Konan or Grégoire Pajot. Lefort on the other hand was an important figure here, a real celebrity.

  ‘I’ll leave you alone now, Muriel, Monsieur le Commissaire. You need to talk.’

  Madame Lefort threw Dupin a questioning look and only replied when he nodded slightly in agreement.

  ‘Thank you. Yes, Monsieur le Commissaire and I have things to discuss. And I’ll go to bed afterwards. Or take a little walk. There’s a full moon. See you tomorrow, Maela.’

  Muriel Lefort had come all the way downstairs by this point. It was clear to see that she still looked haggard, no matter how composed she sounded.

  ‘When the moon rises, it becomes almost as bright as day here on the archipelago, you’ve never seen the like, Monsieur le Commissaire. It’s like a dream.’

  Madame Menez glanced at her watch, gave Dupin a cursory nod and turned to leave.

  ‘I hope you get some sleep tonight, Muriel. You’ve got to recover, you’re going to need a lot of strength.’

  ‘Thanks, Maela. Thank you for everything. You were a great support to me this evening.’

  Maela Menez was almost at the door already.

  ‘Madame Menez – wait. We need to ask you some urgent questions too,’ Dupin was speaking very matter-of-factly, ‘if you could please call in to one of the inspectors? They are in the Quatre Vents.’

  She seemed confused for a moment. But she recovered immediately.

  ‘Oh yes, of course. The investigations.’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ Dupin fixed his gaze on Madame Menez, ‘and I had a question of my own.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Maela Menez was completely confident again now.

  ‘Yesterday evening in the Quatre Vents, you spoke to Lucas Lefort briefly. What was it about?’

  She answered without hesitation.

  ‘I manage the boat park. He wanted to borrow the transport boat for a few days. This week.’

  ‘The transport boat?’

  ‘We have an old motor boat that we use for transporting other, smaller boats, bulky equipment or building materials.’

  ‘And why did he need it?’

  ‘I didn’t ask him.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘That he didn’t stand a chance this week because we needed the boat.’

  ‘How did he react?’

  ‘He said “We’ll see about that”. That was it.’

  Madame Menez’s words made it clear that she considered her obligation to give information fulfilled and she turned to leave again. Dupin let her.

  ‘Thanks very much, Madame Menez. See you tomorrow.’

  Still standing, he got out his notebook and wrote a few things down.

  ‘Oh, sorry, Monsieur le Commissaire. Let’s sit down. Come, let’s sit right here at the kitchen table.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I need something to drink. Will you join me? An old cognac?’

  ‘I … yes.’

  That was a good idea.

  ‘And a coffee?’

  That was even more vital. His caffeine levels were critically low.

  ‘I’d love one.’

  * * *

  In front of Dupin on the old wooden table there was an – already empty – antique-looking espresso cup and a bulbous, generously filled cognac glass. In between lay his notebook, his bic and, dangerously close to the edge of the table, his mobile. Muriel Lefort was sitting opposite him, glass in hand, having already drunk a few mouthfuls from it.

  She had wanted to know everything in detail, the course of events the accident might have taken – everything the police could say at this point. Dupin had reported what he knew. But that was not much.

  ‘We actually don’t know any more than what I’ve just told you. The boat belonged to a third man, Grégoire Pajot.’

  ‘Why were they on his boat?’

  ‘We’re still taking stabs in the dark.’

  Muriel Lefort’s forehead creased.

  ‘Perhaps because they thought they wouldn’t get far in my brother’s speedboat with the high waves. If the sea is rough, a boat like that is no use. Perhaps that’s why they were on Monsieur Pajot’s boat.’

  ‘We found Monsieur Konan’s boat in Bénodet. Your brother must have embarked here, on the Glénan. We have no knowledge of where the three kept the boat afterwards and for how long. I hoped you would perhaps know a little more.’

  ‘No. Nothing at all. I’ve also spoken to Madame Menez already, she saw him just yesterday. You should speak to his girlfriend.’

  ‘We will. Is there any other family? Do we need to inform anyone else?’

  ‘Oh no. There’s only a distant uncle, with whom we haven’t been in touch for more than ten years. What else do you know, Monsieur le Commissaire? It’s important for me to find out everything. It makes it more real.’

  ‘We are assuming that someone mixed the sedatives into their food or drink in the Quatre Vents.’

  ‘In the Quatre Vents? Unbelievable.’

  Suddenly there came a strange buzzing sound, his mobile was moving across the table. The Prefect. Dupin kept speaking, undeterred.

  ‘You yours
elf were in fact in the Quatre Vents at the time we suspect it happened, around half eight?’

  Dupin’s tone of voice didn’t match the sharpness of his question. Muriel Lefort sat up straight and moved back a little in her chair. She didn’t reply.

  ‘Has something unusual crossed your mind?’

  ‘Mine? No. I was only in the Quatre Vents briefly. I got something to eat. An entrecôte. You can get it to go too. I do that sometimes when I have a lot on. I spent the whole evening doing paperwork. In the office. I exchanged a few words with Leussot beforehand. Small talk. Armelle Nuz served me. I didn’t see Solenn at all.

  The word ‘entrecôte’ had not had a good effect on Dupin. He could feel how terribly hungry he was, he was practically dizzy. And entrecôte – entrecôte frites – was by far his favourite food. He tried to concentrate on the conversation.

  ‘Where was your brother standing or sitting when you came into the Quatre Vents?’

  ‘Near where you get the drinks, by the bar, but later also on the other side of the passage. To the right. With a blonde woman.’

  ‘So you were only two or three metres apart. You and your brother.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you’re saying you didn’t speak to him?’

  ‘I don’t think he even noticed me. He was absorbed in his – conversation. There really was a lot going on in the Quatre Vents yesterday evening.’

  ‘We know that. Who else was standing nearby? At the bar? Who was waiting for their food or came to get drinks?’

  Dupin knew that his question would not lead anywhere.

  ‘You’re asking too much there.’

  She paused for a moment, it was clear that she was trying very hard to think.

  ‘Leussot was coming towards me with a bottle of wine when I went to the counter, we spoke there briefly. Maela was sitting right at one of the two tables to the left of the bar. Along with two of our colleagues,’ she faltered and obviously felt obliged to add, ‘two reliable young men, above all suspicion – then – there were definitely five or six people ahead of me, although the queue was moving quickly. People I didn’t know, no doubt they were from the diving centre, or even some of ours, I don’t know all the course participants after all. Oh yes, and Kilian – Kilian Tanguy was at the top of the queue when I came over, he had a big tray in his hands, Armelle had just put something else on it for him.’

  Dupin had noted down a few things. Muriel Lefort had seemed nervous for the last few minutes, in some indefinable way. Her voice sounded distinctly more shaky than it had before. Perhaps it was just the exhaustion.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry to wear you out with all these questions under these circumstances.’

  ‘Personally, I want everything to be cleared up as quickly as possible of course. You know that we truly did not have a harmonious relationship, my brother and me. We had conflicting ideas. But – he was my brother.’

  It sounded like more than an empty phrase.

  ‘Do you have any idea who might have killed your brother then, a theory of what it might have been about?’

  ‘It’s been a long time since we’ve spoken to each other about personal things. Many years. As I said, there was a series of people he was at loggerheads with, but I don’t know of anyone specific in recent weeks or months. I can’t actually tell you anything about my brother’s life.’

  ‘What was the contact like between you in the last few months?’

  ‘In February and March we met for about an hour at a time maybe and we also talked on the phone a few times, every three weeks or so. We never talked about anything private, only about things related to the sailing school. And it always led to arguments. He usually just hung up. And at the end of last year he started on about his plans again.’

  ‘The new tourism plans?’

  ‘Yes. He’s always had megalomaniac ideas. He wanted to make the archipelago into a modern water sports and adventure tourism centre. He submitted his plans for the first time ten years ago. This time it was under the pretext of ‘ecotourism’. After the old mayor of Fouesnant died, whom he’d battled against all these years, he thought he would have another chance with Du Marhallac’h, the new mayor. He was probably willing to have everything submitted to him again.’

  ‘Was he?’

  Madame Lefort looked at the Commissaire in shock.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I heard he hadn’t commented on it yet.’

  The shock on her face grew.

  ‘Lucas told me, back in February, I think.’

  Dupin made a note.

  ‘What exactly did he say?’

  ‘That the mayor had informed him, with regard to his renewed request which he had submitted at the beginning of the year, that what he’d presented sounded “interesting” and that they wanted to looked at the plans in detail.’

  Muriel Lefort had spoken noticeably more quickly.

  ‘I’m sorry to be so insistent – a bad habit of mine, please forgive me.’

  Madame Lefort smiled with relief.

  ‘Even the new or “ecological” plans would have required not just approval from the municipality and the region, but also, due to the strict coastal protection laws, approval from Paris. Strangely, Lucas was always certain he would get them. I think Konan played a part in that, he probably had good political connections in the capital. He lived there most of the time after all.’

  ‘Was Konan caught up in all of these plans, I mean, were they pursuing this together?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. It seemed that way to me. At the beginning anyway. Ten or twelve years ago when my brother started it.’

  ‘So Konan’s money was at stake too?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Dupin made another note in his notebook – there had been a lot of notes since this morning, which was never a good sign.

  ‘Besides, my brother wanted to expand the sailing school. “Internationally” – he wanted to open even more locations. Five more branches in the coming year. I was categorically against it. I think his idea was to become the manager of the international sailing business in the event of his plans here on the islands falling through again and, as they say, “to expand globally”.’

  ‘Will the entire sailing school belong to you now?’

  Dupin had asked the question – one of his preferred methods – extremely abruptly.

  ‘Purely a routine question,’ he added and took a swig of cognac, which tasted extraordinary, as he’d already noted earlier on.

  Again there was an unchecked, anxious cast to Muriel Lefort’s features for a moment.

  ‘I don’t know whether he made a will. And if so, what it contains. For my part, I drew up a will a long time ago now, providing for the transfer of my share to a not-for-profit foundation in the event of my death. The foundation is then supposed to support the sailing school. A notary acquaintance of mine wrote it up – I’ve always wanted to convince my brother to join me. He had no interest in doing so.’

  ‘So the whole sailing school will probably belong to you.’

  ‘I really don’t know,’ she wrinkled her forehead, ‘I – probably, yes.’

  The simple question of who had a material benefit after a murder case – everyone always wanted to deflect it of course – might have seemed old-fashioned, but it was still elementary. Who got something out of the death? And what, exactly? ‘Traditional’ motives for murder still ruled the world: envy, humiliations and hurts, revenge, jealousy and greed dominated all statistics by a wide margin. Even though the murderers in films, television series and books these days were only ever psychopaths.

  ‘How much would you say your company is worth?’

  Muriel Lefort’s gaze made it clear that she deemed the word ‘company’ inadequate.

  ‘It’s hard to say.’

  ‘You must make a certain turnover every year, all things considered. And the company will be worth a multiple of that.’

  ‘I’ll give you the figures later. I’ll spe
ak to my head bookkeeper.’

  ‘What do you know about Konan’s relationship to your brother?’

  ‘Almost nothing. They were here together maybe once a month, at the weekends. I always thought they went out in Konan’s boat. He has quite a stylish boat. They liked to show up at the Quatre Vents or at the parties in the sailing school.’

  ‘Didn’t they sail together?’

  ‘Not at the weekends. I think my brother has been taking longer trips in recent years. With his former teammates. I haven’t seen his sailing yacht in ages. It’s in Concarneau.’

  ‘We’ve heard that already.’

  It had become a long conversation after all. He would leave Madame Lefort in peace now.

  ‘There might even have been a new treasure hunt. I just don’t know.’

  Muriel said this in a serious way, but also somewhat off-hand. Dupin didn’t know quite how to reply.

  ‘Treasure hunt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You mean the search for actual treasure? Gold, silver and all that?’

  ‘It’s a kind of sport here on the archipelago. Even if nobody talks about it. It’s more serious than it might sound. There’s a group of underwater archaeologists in the diving club. Scientists and amateur archaeologists. They cooperate with the official departments of the universities of Brest and Rennes. Everything seems very makeshift, but don’t let that fool you. We don’t set much store by appearances out here.’

  ‘What’s that meant to mean?’

  Dupin ran a hand through his hair. Treasure-hunters. It sounded absurd.

  ‘I mean, what kind of treasures are involved?’

  ‘There are dozens of capsized boats lying around the Glénan. Some famous ships. Especially from previous centuries. The waters are dangerous here. Lots of wrecks have already been discovered, there are special sea maps they’re marked on. With other wrecks, people know more or less where they’re supposed to be, but haven’t found them yet. And obviously there must be many more.’