Murder on Brittany Shores (29 page)

Voices could be heard from the stern. He heard Anjela Barrault saying ‘see you tomorrow' many times. It sounded warm each time.

Dupin felt dizzy. He probably had for a while now, but he had been distracted during the journey. For a moment he was so dizzy he was afraid he would lose his balance. Or stumble, fall. The boat was bobbing, but Dupin's feeling went far beyond than that. The sea itself seemed to be swaying. A great, sweeping swaying. He had instinctively taken hold of the railing with both hands and was holding on with all his strength. He tried to keep his gaze riveted on a fixed point on the island.

But what gave him a shock yet again was: the bang when Anjela Barrault slammed the hatch in the railing shut, clearly with even more force than before. It sounded like a gunshot. Dupin jumped. Yet the small fright helped him more than deep breathing.

He needed to distract himself.

Dupin went back to the wheelhouse. The boat was picking up speed, the vibrations going right through him, making his bones resonate right down to smallest one.

‘What else do you want to know? We'll be at Saint-Nicolas any moment.'

As though to prove it she ramped up the engine to the maximum, along with the noise and vibration.

‘That Sunday evening in the
Quatre Vents
– do you remember what time you arrived?'

‘Your inspector has already asked me that too. Quarter to nine.'

‘And did anything unusual strike you then? At about this time, someone was presumably slipping the sedative to Lefort and Konan.'

‘I was sitting at the bar. I didn't even notice them properly. Most of the time I was talking to Solenn's older daughter. We get on very well. And to Solenn's father-in-law, Pascal.'

Dupin had clean forgotten him.

‘He doesn't talk much.'

‘No.'

‘What did you talk about?'

‘About a few strange currents there have been recently.'

‘Strange currents?'

‘Yes, oddly strong currents right at the western and southern exits from the chamber that immediately try and drag you southwards to the open sea. Now that it's spring tide. We're familiar with currents like these at coefficients of 120, but always towards the land. Now suddenly they're tugging you towards the open sea.'

‘So you didn't particularly notice anything that evening?'

‘No.'

‘Who else was at the bar?'

‘Oh God, it's always chaos there. Maela Menez. She's tough. But wonderful. I like her. I think a few diving students too. Louann Nuz. Armelle Nuz. I stayed a long time. Most people left before the storm got going. I don't like to be alone in thunderstorms like that,' this was very confidently expressed. ‘Later, I sat by myself, most of the time.'

‘The two Nuz daughters state you were already there around quarter past eight.'

Something flickered in her eyes for a brief moment.

‘This is like an old crime novel. Poisoned drinks, a group of strange folks stranded on an island.'

Dupin looked intently at her.

‘Then the two of them were simply mistaken. I can't tell you any more than that.'

‘What do you mean by “Madame Menez is tough”?'

‘Relentless. Unyielding. She has completely internalised the old values of the sailing school. She marches fearlessly into every battle for them. But with an open visor. She works day and night.'

‘Which battles?'

‘The one with Lefort for instance.'

It all sounded a bit vague to Dupin's ears, he wasn't sure if that was intentional.

‘She shows the feelings that Muriel Lefort holds back. Muriel is always composed.'

‘What feelings are these?'

‘Hate. They are familiar with that.'

‘You mean she truly hated Lucas Lefort?'

‘It was no secret.'

‘How close are you to Muriel Lefort?'

‘We get on well. Even if you couldn't say that we are friends. We women have to stick together out here. Solenn, Muriel and I. Muriel represents something big. She takes it seriously.'

‘And Muriel
hated
her brother too?'

‘Deeply. She always wanted to buy him out – and he wanted to buy her out. Both of them thought: at some point the other one will give in. Only Muriel suffered. He had his fun. And trampled on all that was sacred to her.'

‘Do you know of a man in her life?'

Dupin himself didn't know how he'd got onto this topic.

‘No. The women here live without men. Without fixed men. We're almost there by the way.'

He looked ahead. The quay was in fact not much further.

‘I wanted…'

Dupin heard his mobile amongst the loud engine noise as though it was coming from far away. He dared to relax his wedged position in the door. It was Riwal.

‘They've found Le Menn's car, chief.'

‘Where?'

‘In the big car park in Sainte-Marine, at the harbour, not very far from his house. His boat is missing. He owns a Merry Fisher by Jeanneau, nine metres twenty-five, a popular boat here on the coast.'

Inspector Riwal was – of course – a boat expert too. Along with his ‘druidic' streak, he also had a practical and very well-developed interest in technology.

‘So he's out in his boat?'

‘Looks like it. So shall we call off the manhunt?'

‘No. We don't have Le Menn yet.'

‘But he's at sea.'

‘Let's wait it out, Riwal. It could be a different story. Perhaps he's trying to trick us. Maybe he has gone ashore somewhere else. In Fouesnant or Concarneau. Or he went up the Odet and left his boat behind there. If he were on the run, that wouldn't be implausible.'

‘You're right,' Riwal's pondering was almost audible. ‘So you definitely suspect Le Menn then?'

‘I suspect everyone right now. Especially if someone was at the scene of the crime at the time it was being committed and disappears the next morning.'

‘Or, he is another victim.'

Dupin answered with some hesitation.

‘Or, he is another victim.'

‘I'll inform the coastguard.'

‘Please do. And – Riwal?'

‘Yes.'

‘There was something else I'd forgotten just now: find out when our biologist, Leussot, is going to get back on land. Whether he's coming to Saint-Nicolas. I would like to hear from him firsthand what happened with the fight between him and Lefort and why he didn't say anything about it.'

‘Will do.'

Dupin hung up and only now did he notice that the
Bakounine
had already moored at the quay. Thirty metres away from Riwal. Anjela Barrault was standing at the railing and looking in his direction. Having been able simply to jump onto the boat earlier, he would just have to climb up some rungs of the rusty iron ladder now.

‘Thank you for your help, Madame Barrault. That information was important.'

‘Only you can judge that.'

The smile that crossed her face at this sentence was even more entrancing than before. She was fully aware of its effect.

‘Enjoy the diving, deep below the water.'

‘I'm not going to go that deep today.'

‘Speak to you very soon.'

That sounded more definite than Dupin had intended.

‘It would be a pleasure.'

Dupin considered offering Madame Barrault his hand to shake, but then simply climbed up the ladder.

*   *   *

Even from a distance, Dupin could see that Kadeg was sitting next to Riwal at the ‘operations table'. Dupin headed straight for the bar and left the two inspectors to their own devices. Which prompted baffled looks. He was in desperate need of a coffee. And a large glass of water. After leaving the
Bakounine,
he had suddenly been overcome by the strong feeling that the world, although he now had solid ground underfoot, was swaying even more violently than on the boat. The dizziness had been more severe than the attack before. The older of the two Nuz daughters served him in a friendly way and started a conversation, but Dupin was not in any condition to show any interest. He was concentrating intently on regaining his balance. He ordered two coffees, drank one immediately standing up and moved very, very slowly and carefully through the bar with the second one and the glass of water, making for the two inspectors outside.

Kadeg seemed to have been staring at the entrance to the bar. As soon as Dupin emerged from the door, he leapt up and came hurrying over.

‘The helicopter just dropped me off. We have come across a range of controversial information during the searches – the hard drives were conclusive,' Kadeg was too quick and too eager for Dupin to have been able to interrupt him. ‘I had been trying to reach you, but it was always engaged. I wanted to speak to you directly. There are more companies owned by Pajot, some of which Konan was involved in. As an investor. One is a consortium belonging to the two them – and guess who else was involved and what the purpose of it was!'

This was how Kadeg was when he had
tracked something down.
Dupin was not in the mood for this over-enthusiasm. He sat down. Of course it had only been a rhetorical guessing game – after a short, dramatic pause, Kadeg came straight to the point.

‘They set up a consortium for the development of tourism in the Glénan, which in turn has shares in Lefort's business.'

That really was an interesting piece of news. Dupin drank the second coffee. In small, but quick sips, so as not to burn his mouth again. He didn't know whether it would be good for him in this very unpleasant state, seasickness did have something to do with the stomach – but Georges Dupin essentially believed caffeine capable of anything. A medical miracle of course.

‘What is the company called?'

‘
Les Glénan vertes.
‘The Green Glénan. That was Lefort's new project. And there's even better to come.'

Another dramatic pause.

‘It was extremely complicated to find out. They made every effort imaginable to cover it up. With numerous accounts and sub-accounts. An expert from Rennes had to take a look. Then I went through it with him, painstakingly. He obviously couldn't make out the hidden meaning.'

‘What, Kadeg?'

‘Transfers were made from one of Pajot's accounts to Du Marhallac'h twice, each for over thirty thousand euro, nine months ago and six months ago.'

Dupin was immediately alert, the dizziness completely vanished. He didn't say a word. Because his thoughts were racing – and because he did not want to show he was impressed by Kadeg. ‘The transfers were marked “architect's services”. We haven't found anything yet about any services rendered in any records or on the computers.'

‘Architect's services?'

Riwal chimed in:

‘Du Marhallac'h is an architect actually. He has had his own office for twenty-two years. But since he has been mayor, he has only worked as an architect occasionally. Before that he must have been extremely successful, he got commissions all along coast.'

Riwal's brother was an architect, just like Dupin's sister. He was well informed.

‘Good.'

Dupin leant back. He himself didn't know what he meant by ‘good'. It was clear from Kadeg and Riwal's faces: they didn't know either. It was getting more and more odd. He was familiar with this of course. Sometimes there were several substantial leads in a case, but normally a proportion of them cooled down over the course of the investigation, suddenly or gradually. The opposite was the case here – more and more kept cropping up.

‘What about the director, Kadeg – and the institute? The deals between the institute and
Medimare?
'

That's what the searches had really been about for Dupin.

‘The experts are still working on that. So far, all of the files look normal. On paper at least. We also have not found any suspicious transactions or anything like that yet.'

‘And the deals involving Leussot's research?'

‘Nothing unusual there either. At this point we have identified four such cases. Depending on what dodgy stuff went on, it will be difficult to impossible to prove anything actionable.'

Kadeg was all too openly enjoying explaining how Dupin's lead had so far come to nothing.

‘Kadeg. You head off straight away. I want you to drive to Du Marhallac'h and grill him. Properly.'

‘But I've only just arrived and along with Riwal, I wanted…'

‘Tear him apart, Kadeg.'

From the gleeful flicker in Kadeg's eyes, it was clear that Dupin had now hit upon the right choice of words.

‘All right.'

‘This is corruption. And I want watertight evidence of it. The whole story. They bought him. No way did he just want to
simply examine them with an open mind.
'

Again, Dupin was proved right in his prejudices towards politicians – pathetically, it was sad.

‘I'd also be interested to know how far along the plans for the development of the islands really were. What stage were they at? They must be on Lefort's laptop, Kadeg.'

‘We've already found them there, but we haven't been able to take a look yet.'

‘“Architect's services”. – We're going to nail him!'

No matter how much he tried, Dupin couldn't manage to savour the moment properly. So far, the search had been anything but a triumph. He had wanted to get his hands on something against the Director of the institute. Above all: he wanted to solve the murder case. Besides, he was responsible for making use of the last resort in investigative tools, based on the vague hint of a mystery caller.

Kadeg leapt up, full of energy.

‘The helicopter is still here. I'll hurry.'

‘Be rough, Kadeg.'

At these words, Kadeg turned to Dupin with a look confident of triumph and an irrefutable sense of having the case in hand.