Murder on Brittany Shores (28 page)

‘Okay. Then let's speak later, Monsieur le Commissaire.'

Nolwenn sounded fully composed.

‘Let's.'

She hung up.

Dupin stayed stock still. This was a crazy case. Not just the case itself. Everything.

*   *   *

The
Bakounine
had now come within fifty metres of Cigogne – the island in the middle of the chamber. The fortress, more or less round for the most part, could already clearly be made out. The legendary Fort Cigogne had a pointed, sharp bend in seven places, which is where it got its name (‘
seiz kogn
', seven corners in Breton). Now it was used by the sailing school. Corsairs that had found perfect cover on the Glénan were chased out of here in earlier times. The worst of them came from the English island of Guernsey, of course. It was regarded as fact that there were hidden chambers and vaults both in and underneath the fort. Corridors suddenly ending in nothing. People spoke about widely branching secret tunnels underneath the seafloor that you could get to all of the islands through. Seeing the dark, atmospheric fortress, you believed it straight away.

It occurred to Dupin that he hadn't even enquired what ‘doing the rounds' meant earlier. There were quite a lot of islands.

The dark band of cloud had pushed closer, it was deep black by now and much wider. That didn't mean anything in Brittany. Even so, Dupin had to admit that he wouldn't have suspected a few hours ago that it would move in their direction at all. You still couldn't class it as proper wind, but the weak draught that was palpable again this afternoon was clearly coming from the opposite direction, from the east. Dupin relaxed. A moment later he was standing in the wheelhouse again. Anjela Barrault greeted him with her bewitching laugh.

‘This is an amusing investigation. The way you work, I mean.'

‘I … you and Solenn Nuz are friends, I've been told.'

‘Very old friends. We went to primary school together. Loctudy.'

‘And how did you come to the islands and to this job?'

‘You want to hear
my
story?'

She seemed genuinely astonished for the first time.

‘I do.'

‘After the death of her husband, Solenn Nuz considered buying the diving school. Lefort wanted to take it over. He made a very impressive offer. Likewise Muriel Lefort. She even outbid her brother. I was an amateur diver at the time, a yoga teacher really and before that I had been in Kathmandu for two years. When I came back, I happened to run into Solenn. We arranged to meet. Then she told me about her situation, made me an offer and, in a pub, at two in the morning, I said I'd do it. My then boyfriend had found someone else while I was away and my parents had died shortly before. The way it always is: everything happens at once. Life is chaos, more muddled than a ball of wool.'

Dupin liked the image of the ball of wool. It was very true, he thought.

‘That is
my
story in one minute.'

This was expressed without sorrow, without flirtation.

‘And then you become a world-class free diver?'

‘Believe me. Strictly speaking, it's just a different form of yoga.'

She throttled the engine. They had arrived at her next stop. A small group was waiting on the beach again, this time there were just three divers.

‘Just these ones and then off to Penfret. Have you done yoga before?'

Dupin had nothing against yoga, nothing at all, but he was certain that he was the most unsuited person in the whole world when it came to that kind of thing. Yoga, meditation, self-hypnosis, all relaxation techniques. He got nervous just hearing the words. Nobody could be less talented in matters of conscious relaxation. He deliberately ignored the question.

‘So Madame Lefort had made Solenn Nuz a very high offer for the diving school?'

Muriel Lefort was more business-minded than he'd thought.

‘Yes. She was really serious about it. By the way, since you're so interested in sunken ships: on this side of Cigogne alone there are four, all pirate ships. Immense treasures were found in the wreck of the
Double Revanche
in the thirties. It was buried deep in the sand, amid dozens of lobsters. The lobsters love the wrecks of the old wooden ships. Did you know that the Glénan have a mascot? A lobster, Charlie, over eighty years old. He lives in a wreck not far from the quay on Saint-Nicolas. Everyone knows him. The club set up signs under water at his favourite spots to sit. Every diving newbie has to pay him their respects once.'

She laughed.

‘Charlie. There are some videos online,' in more of a scholarly tone she added: ‘Lobsters are completely sedentary. A one-hundred-and-forty-year-old lobster was saved from the pot at the last minute recently – it was almost a metre long.'

With a powerful swing, Anjela Barrault turned the steering wheel right around and set the boat to idle. She looked expectantly to Dupin, who took a moment to realise – he was in the way. She wanted to get to the stern of the boat.

‘The same procedure as just now.'

Dupin stepped aside and headed for the prow again. He was still occupied by the idea of the one-metre long and one-hundred-and-forty-year-old lobster: so it had been born around 1870, Charlie in at least the 1930s – he was older than Dupin's mother. He was anxious to keep it all abstract. He liked the taste of lobster too much.

His mobile had slid deep into his trouser pocket again. He dialled Goulch's number. The young police officer was on the line immediately.

‘Monsieur le Commissaire?'

‘Where are you?'

‘Still in the docks, at the examination of the Bénéteau. But we'll be done very soon. We've also been able to save map stuff. Ordinary nautical maps, laminated paper. We'll take a good look at them. We haven't been able to find any markings yet.'

‘I need you. Go to Monsieur Leussot's boat. He's probably still somewhere near the Moutons, or already on Saint-Nicolas. Take a look at his ship, check what technical equipment and technology he owns which would be suitable for hunting for treasure. And see if you see something that definitely indicates that he's actively – how to phrase this – on a hunt.'

‘A proper search, am I understanding you correctly?'

‘If need be.'

Even though this way of going about things had – like all the other actions today, in Dupin's opinion – something of a stabbing in the dark quality to it, he wanted to know now. And: even stabbing in the dark could be very effective. So long as he was not stabbing in the wrong direction entirely.

‘And then look at Kilian Tanguy, Muriel Lefort and Du Marhallac'h's boats. And the one belonging to the doctor who disappeared, Devan Le Menn. Have I forgotten someone?'

‘The Director of the institute? Anjela Barrault?'

‘Anjela Barrault?'

‘The head of the…'

‘I know who she is.'

‘She has her own boat too. She often uses it for the diving school.'

‘How do you know that?'

‘Everyone who is constantly out on the water here knows each other, at least to some extent. They know of each other.'

‘I'll take care of that, about Anjela Barrault's boat. I'm having a conversation with her right now.'

‘Are you on her boat at the moment?'

If he were honest, he had no idea if it was her boat.

‘What kind of boat does she have? What does it look like?'

‘A Jeanneau, Cap Camarat, open-topped, maybe seven metres long, an old model, but in good condition, white, recently repainted.'

‘Then I'm not on her boat. – So inspect her boat too.'

‘Good. I'll head out immediately.'

‘And yes – the Director's boat should definitely be searched. And ask around about whether anyone knows of – treasure-hunting activity on the coast here.'

‘Madame Barrault would definitely be best placed to know that. Or one of the archaeologists. Or Solenn Nuz.'

‘Get in touch if you've got something.'

‘Will do, Monsieur le Commissaire.'

Dupin hung up. And took a few deep breaths. It was astonishing, the air smelled and tasted even ‘oceanier' today: salt, iodine, magnesium, iron, calcium – and algae. Dupin grinned to himself, he was reminded inevitably of Nolwenn: the health, oh no, the medicinal quality of the Atlantic air was among her favourite topics. ‘Like a permanent saltwater bath. The nervous and muscular systems relax, blockages and internal clamps are loosened,' she liked to say. Dupin particularly liked that internal clamps stuff, even though he had no clear idea of what it meant. Of course people ascribed more ‘banal' effects to the Atlantic air in general, like the detoxification of the organism, the harmonisation of the metabolism and various healing effects. In the initial period of his ‘transfer' it had all seemed like esotericism or druidic healing rituals. But then he had done some research and been very impressed. The proportions of the individual components of the sea in fact corresponded almost exactly with how they were present in the blood and in the tissue fluid in the human body.

When Dupin turned round, he saw that Anjela Barrault was already closing the hatch. The loud bang followed and again she left the divers to their own devices, already making her way back to the wheelhouse.

‘Now we'll drop them all off on Penfret. Our spartan accommodation is there.'

A moment later she was standing at the the helm again. And Dupin was in the opening of the wheelhouse once more.

‘Are we going back to Saint-Nicolas afterwards?'

Anjela glanced at her impressive diving watch, which she wore over the sleeve of her suit.

‘We should be at the quay around five p.m. And then maybe you'd like to go out with me again?'

‘You're going out again?'

‘The sun only goes down at nine. These are
my
hours.'

She smiled warmly.

‘Are you going to be out in
your
boat?'

She wasn't in the least bit put out by Dupin's question.

‘No, I'm staying on the
Bakounine.
I would only be wasting time. I just let them out at the quay and keep going.' Without changing her tone she added:

‘You're well informed.'

‘That's my job.'

‘I'm sure you'll want to know whether my boat is suitable for hunting for treasure?'

‘Indeed.'

‘I have a perfectly normal sonar, but a hideously expensive underwater camera, the latest model. It's crazy. It's five times better than normal cameras. My assistants film me with it when I'm training. But you can only see what the camera lets you see. Things on the sand. On the seafloor. Do you want to look at it?'

‘I think that's enough for the time being. It's possible a police officer will still want to take a look at the boat.'

‘You really think that these murders are about treasure?'

‘We'll see.'

‘Did you always want to be a police officer?'

Anjela Barrault had asked this question in the same mild tone of voice that she had been using the whole time.

‘I think so, although I never used to think about it. My father was a police officer. He died when I was six.'

Dupin had answered without thinking and was surprised he'd done so. It wasn't his way, talking about himself. Especially not on a case.

‘What do you think happened here on the islands, Madame Barrault?'

Dupin was trying hard for a serious tone.

‘Maybe it didn't happen on the islands at all.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Maybe it involved things from the outside that have nothing to do with the people here. Perhaps it was a coincidence that this was where it happened.'

Dupin found this answer only marginally more comprehensible than the first one.

‘Specifically?'

‘I don't know. They must be terrible things. So much destruction.'

Dupin needed to bring the conversation back down to earth a little.

‘And Lefort's tourist plans?'

Anjela Barrault laughed scornfully. More mischievously scornful than he would have thought her capable.

‘Oh yes. His great plans. His great playground.'

‘Do you know the new plans?'

‘Nobody knows them yet. Except the amorphous bureaucrats from Fouesnant. I don't even believe in any
new
plans. They're always the same ones.'

‘The mayor?'

‘The mayor.'

‘And what do you think?'

‘About what exactly?'

‘How do you view the idea of expanding the sailing school, the diving school – and tourism on the Glénan?'

‘It's a big joke. A terrifying joke at the same time. I would rather the islands got swallowed up by the Atlantic. Which will happen very soon anyway, if the sea level keeps going up. This little bit of stone and sand.'

‘You don't think that it can be carried out in an ecological way?'

‘Bullshit.'

Anjela Barrault made no move to answer in more detail. She turned her head and looked Dupin firmly, almost sternly, in the eye. A moment later she looked ahead intently again. They had arrived at their destination. Penfret. They were right at the ‘whale skeleton', the massive, still fully intact wooden frame of a mighty old ship that had run aground here, whose planks had decayed little by little, but whose solid wooden scaffolding still towered up out of the sand. Dupin knew it from last year.

As the divers got out, he let his gaze sweep over the island. The basic accommodation was visible, scattered far apart, low wooden cabins. They stood in close squares of four, there were perhaps twenty in total. They extended from the beach to the middle of the island where the ruins of the old farmhouses from the nineteenth century stood, which Henri had showed him last year. They were in fact absolutely normal houses, Dupin thought. To the right of the farmhouses stood two taller, two-storey wooden cabins. This was where the temporary canteens and bars, as well as the entertainment rooms were. Youth hostels were luxurious in comparison, Dupin had been impressed. The island was towered over by the famous white-painted lighthouse with the glowing red glass whose 175th birthday had been celebrated last year, by decorating it with festive bunting. It rose up out of the roof of a large stone house where the lighthouse keepers had lived with their families in days gone by. Nolwenn had told him some of the tragic stories that had grown up around the lighthouse. Only one had stayed with Dupin. And still gave Dupin a slight shiver. One day the glasshouse's red light shattered in a blustery storm and a new one had been installed in a huge rush to avoid accidents, but only white glass had been available. In the weeks that followed, four ships full of people had capsized on the archipelago. People had thought the lighthouse's white light was the lighthouse on Penmarc'h and during the night or in bad weather, navigation had gone terribly wrong. Hundreds of people had died. A terrible story.