The Fleur De Sel Murders

by Jean-Luc Bannalec

  “You mean you can confirm that these microorganisms really can destroy green algae?”

  “I said that they could exhibit traits to achieve this. Of course we haven’t done thorough testing yet. But yes, they have the capacity for it, by the looks of things.”

  They were right. This was it. Incredible.

  “I want to mention again just how risky microorganisms like this are. Having said that, we haven’t been able to identify toxic effects yet, and based on our preliminary knowledge there is no danger of dispersal via wind or precipitation. It seems they need to be re-created every time and don’t independently reproduce in weak salt solutions. But it’s still to be determined what other chemical and biological effects they will display.” Goal sounded anxious. “It’s criminal. Highly criminal. The food safety inspectors will want to close all of the salt marshes. Préfet Trottet was instructed by Paris to allow the food safety authorities to carry out their own analyses in the pool. They’ve already taken samples. The boss is so aggressive—she’s calling me every fifteen minutes.”

  “We’re seeing her in a few minutes and we’ll speak to her. The important thing is, Monsieur Goal: we would like to keep the specific capabilities of these microorganisms to ourselves for now.”

  “We can’t possibly do that, Monsieur le Commissaire—” There was an audible sigh. “—but okay. It’s your responsibility.”

  “Absolutely. You’re acting strictly on my orders.”

  Dupin didn’t see the need to divulge everything straightaway. The perpetrator—the perpetrators—still had no idea that the police knew the secret of the pool. They might be able to use this to their advantage in the investigation.

  “Do you think the entire White Land needs to be sealed off, Monsieur Goal?”

  Rose had come even closer to Dupin, speaking loudly over him into his phone.

  “I don’t know the exact regulations”—Goal was speaking unnecessarily loudly now too—“but based on my expertise I would only close the adjacent salt marshes for now and have them examined very soon. Along with the entire harvest from those salt marshes. Check if there has been any kind of contamination. But as I said: food safety regulations are stricter than our regulations.”

  “Get in touch as soon as there’s any news, no matter what it is.” Dupin hung up.

  Rose moved away again and summarized: “All right. That’s as much certainty as we’ll get for now. This is it, our big story. We’ve got it. And now we’ll find out who thought it up and did everything they could to keep it hidden.”

  A short time later they walked into the glass conference room from earlier. Madame Cordier was standing in the corner opposite the door, a sheaf of papers in her hand. Today her T-shirt was white with a large black copyright symbol; the jeans looked like the same ones from yesterday. A cold, arrogant gaze and bright red lips again, pressed together.

  “You are duty-bound to inform me in full about everything, without keeping anything back, if it could be of relevance to food safety. We have taken our own samples, but that will take some time. Do you know what microorganisms are involved? The ministry’s department of food safety is waiting for me to report to them. And everything depends on this. They are ready to take action immediately.”

  She made no move to sit down. Neither did Rose or Dupin.

  “Madame Cordier, have there been complaints in the White Land in the last year? Anything unusual in your checks?” Rose sounded perfectly relaxed. Almost cheerful.

  “No. Nothing at all.”

  “You monitor the salt producers and also the other food institutes that work in Gwenn Rann, is that correct?”

  “Precisely.”

  “How often do your own checks take place?”

  “Once a week.” Celine Cordier folded her arms over the copyright symbol on her T-shirt.

  “And the ones for the three salt marshes around this pool?”

  “We take samples from all salt pools once a week.”

  “Do you carry out the analyses yourself?”

  “Five employees do, under my direction. I’m going to ask you again, officially: What microorganisms are in the samples from the pool?”

  “That is subject to police confidentiality. Our chemist will tell you what precautions he considers advisable.”

  Cordier unfolded her arms again. “So you don’t know what strain is involved. That’s all the more cause for concern!”

  Objectively speaking, Madame Cordier’s persistence was understandable.

  “That alone would allow us to evaluate the situation. And then carry out the appropriate measures. So the only option left to me is to have all of the salt marshes shut down.”

  “Madame Cordier, where were you on Wednesday evening? What were you doing between half past eight and two in the morning?”

  Madame Cordier kept her composure. “This is ludicrous,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Well?”

  “I was in the institute until around half past eight. I left earlier than usual on Wednesday. I went home briefly and then out to a party. I was there till at least half past one without leaving the party for a single moment.” She smiled sweetly. “It was a really fun evening.”

  “And where is your institute? And your home? Where was the party?”

  “The institute is in Vannes. I live in Pen Lan. That’s where the party was too. In the Domaine de Rochevilaine, an excellent restaurant. The local sports club was celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of its founding.”

  “And in the institute, at home, and at the party was there always someone who will be able to confirm your testimony to our inspectors?”

  “The institute is big. But most of my colleagues leave earlier than I do. So I can’t guarantee it. I live alone, but lots of people saw me at the party. Like I said, it was a really fun evening.”

  “Great, our inspectors will be in touch. Have we got anything else to discuss?”

  Madame Cordier smiled again, coldly this time. “Well, I’m going to pass on my urgent recommendations to the ministry. And inform Madame Bourgiot right away.”

  “That will have to wait a little at least. Madame Bourgiot has an appointment with us first.”

  Celine Cordier got up expressionlessly, walked past Rose and Dupin, and left the room without another word.

  “Where is Pen Lan?” Dupin had never heard of the place.

  “At the mouth of the Vilaine. The northern side. Between the gulf and the Guérande. It’s very pretty. Let’s not keep Madame Bourgiot waiting any longer.”

  Dupin had never seen the Vilaine before, but everyone raved about it. It was a large Breton river steeped in history and part of an extensive web of waterways Nolwenn talked about a lot. She described gentle valleys, isolated, enchanted scenery, lock-keepers who sold vegetables they’d grown themselves, a paradise for houseboats.

  Rose slipped gracefully through the door and turned left. Dupin followed her.

  Apart from Madame Bourgiot’s office, the Centre didn’t have a second floor, just this one room. A steep, transparent staircase led up to it. The office was made almost entirely of glass too, which made it seem spacious, with sharp corners and edges like crystals, but best of all was the fantastic view. This elevation of just a few meters was enough to give a panoramic view of the flat Gwenn Rann area, across the bizarre, beautiful scenery of the salt gardens, the bright, pale green floodplains, across the turquoise lagoons as far as Kervalet, Batz-sur-Mer, and Le Croisic with its huge, angular church. Dupin was impressed.

  “Madame Cordier is going to recommend to the ministry that all the salt marshes be shut down. She’s going to come to you any moment now, Madame Bourgiot.”

  This was, after a brief formal greeting, Rose’s cunning starting point, delivered matter-of-factly. Dupin still had no idea what the commissaire was hoping for from this conversation, which left him with a lurking anxiety. Madame Bourgiot was wearing a stylish teal suit today. She came across as flustered. Tense. Like when they had first
met. They had already seen how erratic and unpredictable her behavior could be.

  “That would be a catastrophe! That’s why I spoke to the ministry in Paris myself. We’ve got to avoid it at all costs. Or are there any updates? Developments that mean it’s actually necessary?”

  The head of the Centre was sitting in an expensive but uncomfortable-looking designer chair, which, like almost all of the furniture in the room, was made of milky white plexiglass. Dupin’s and Rose’s chairs on the other side of the narrow desk were made of the same stuff and were difficult even to sit on. Rose had—no doubt deliberately—allowed a short pause to develop, and Dupin used it.

  “We can’t comment on that, Madame Bourgiot, but you could tell us what professional training you’ve done.”

  This was what he was really interested in. The constant verbal battle of wills was annoying him.

  “What training I’ve done?” Her bafflement seemed genuine.

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m a qualified agricultural scientist. École Normale Supérieure in Paris.”

  “So I assume you’ve taken some biology and chemistry?”

  It was a few moments before Madame Bourgiot answered. Dupin glanced at Rose. She seemed quite amused.

  “We did some biology and chemistry now and again, of course. And I was good at it. How is that relevant?”

  The connections and the reasons why people in the White Land had biological or chemical knowledge were multiplying. And becoming more and more plausible.

  “We like to build up a full picture.”

  Dupin sounded a little glum. If they were going to find out anything at all in this conversation—and Rose had been determined to have it—then it would probably only be if they approached it in a radical way. If they were to bring everything out into the open, trying to face the facts head on—an escalation. And then they would wait to see what happened.

  “We…”

  He was interrupted by Rose’s mobile. She glanced quickly at the display and swiftly answered.

  “Chadron?… I see. Wait a moment.” She stood up and was at the door in just a few strides. This seemed important. “Madame Clothilde?”

  As she asked this question, Rose vanished through the door, only to reappear a few seconds later and make a signal to Dupin to follow her. This was apparently truly important.

  Rose walked through the “experience room,” still talking, and stopped in front of the “Bloody Salt” display.

  “And she really couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman?… And this was around eleven forty-five?… Fine … Thanks, Chadron. The team is to keep going with its inquiries. Maybe someone else was out and about on the street at the time.”

  She hung up and slipped the mobile into her jacket pocket. Then slowly she stretched her upper body, rested her hands on her sides, and tilted her head slightly.

  “We’ve sent some police officers to the island to make enquiries. Madame Clothilde is a legendary old woman on the Île aux Moines. She’s ninety-two. Everyone on the island knows her. Her house is near the harbor and she drives one of those tiny electric cars, like a golf cart. In fact she’s not allowed to drive it anymore. She only does two routes, they’ve been the same for decades. One is to her best friend’s house at the other end of the island. She always stays till it gets late.” Dupin didn’t have the faintest idea where she was going with this. “She has a big old dog and a cat who always go with her. There’s a blind spot at the entrance to her plot of land when you’re going in or out. So she always drives as far as the corner, counts to five, and drives on—”

  “She does what?” Dupin had simply blurted it out. It was bizarre—this whole story. And Rose, it seemed to him, was only giving him so much detail so that she could think it through as she did so. “What’s this really about? Tell me.”

  “She counts to five and drives onto the road without being able to see anything. As I mentioned, the cart is tiny. She, the dog, and the cat use up the small amount of air very quickly, and once they’re underway, the windows fog up. If it gets too bad, she stops and opens the doors for a few minutes.” Rose paused. She was clearly taking what she said very seriously.

  “During one of these stops, she saw someone pulling a canoe up the beach directly in front of Maxime Daeron’s house at around eleven forty-five.”

  Dupin’s eyes widened. He understood immediately.

  “She couldn’t quite make out the person. She couldn’t even say if it was a man or a woman. But somebody landed there in a canoe, she’s sure of that.”

  Dupin ran a hand through his hair. This was awful news. While in theory it was possible that someone had just nicked a canoe last night for a little adventure and paddled from Port-Blanc to the Île aux Moines, to the Plage de Kerscot—the likelihood that this should happen to take place on the exact night of the crime, exactly at the possible time of the crime, and on the exact beach where the crime scene was, was not high.

  “The canoe found with water in it this morning was examined straight after the young man reported it—there were no fingerprints on it. Nothing.”

  “Is this Madame Clothilde still all there? I mean…”

  “Sound as a bell! Every morning at breakfast she reads the entire Télégramme and can then retell you every single article, in detail, in order, sometimes word for word. In the afternoons she sits in Le San Francisco and discusses it.”

  Dupin rubbed the back of his head.

  “This is no coincidence. Maxime Daeron was murdered. Someone staged his suicide with impressive skill and extreme cold-bloodedness.”

  Commissaire Rose’s words hung in the air between them for a while. No, this was no coincidence. So—it was another significant twist in this case.

  Dupin was trying to rethink the case, or rather, one of the many strands of the story. “Maybe someone just planted the gun on him to frame him for the shooting too, as well as being involved in the algae project. The perpetrator was hoping we might eventually think the most plausible explanation was that he was also Lilou Breval’s murderer.”

  “Or Maxime really was involved in some way. But not by himself. We’re pretty sure we’re dealing with more than one perpetrator, on the algae project at least.”

  It was dizzying. New configurations were constantly forming at top speed, one after another.

  “Crap.”

  They did in fact—in all likelihood—have a second murder on their hands. More specifically, a callous second murder. They had almost been deceived. Almost.

  Rose didn’t even hear Dupin’s exclamation. She was heading for the steps and Dupin was following behind. To his surprise, however, she stopped at the door to Bourgiot’s office. She gave him a look that was hard to interpret but there was something conspiratorial about it.

  The two commissaires went in together. Madame Bourgiot looked at them calmly, not showing any signs of annoyance.

  “A few more questions, Madame Bourgiot. Where were you yesterday evening and last night? And please list all of the people who can testify to this effect.” Rose had adopted her friendly, neutral tone. Strikingly focused.

  Madame Bourgiot answered with perfect poise: “Should I infer from your question that you’re no longer proceeding on the assumption of suicide?”

  “If you could just answer the question, please.”

  Madame Bourgiot leaned back in her chair. “When I have no work commitments, I eat, as you already know, with my husband. As I did yesterday. In the garden. He came in around eight. I came in around half past. We sat there till midnight. Maybe even slightly later.”

  “Apart from your husband, can anyone else confirm this? Did you make any calls?”

  “No. Just my husband. Two calls.”

  “From your landline?”

  “From my mobile.”

  “Please have another think about Wednesday night, the same thing goes: Does anyone or anything occur to you, apart from your husband, who could prove that you were really at home? Before two o’c
lock in the morning?”

  “No. I’ve already told you so.” Madame Bourgiot could not be ruffled.

  “We’ll have another in-depth conversation with your husband then.” Rose’s words were an undisguised threat.

  Of course Bourgiot may have done just that, spent a pleasant evening with her husband, but that was the problem with these kinds of alibis, and they’d already seen that on this case once before.

  “It would be fatal. Another murder would be fatal for the Salt Land. All hell is breaking loose.”

  Bourgiot’s despairing words sounded like a surrender. A realization of her own powerlessness.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Madame Bourgiot looked right at Rose, but her eyes were blank. “Nothing.”

  Dupin was lost in thought about this new development. If Daeron had been murdered too, they were dealing with a very different kind of perpetrator than they anticipated at the outset. So on Wednesday evening a dramatic situation of some kind didn’t just escalate dramatically—someone was acting in a systematic way. Daeron—perhaps implicated, perhaps a victim?—had been disposed of. Motives for murder come in all shapes and sizes: manifold human dramas, injuries, tragic passions, greed, revenge—the “heated emotions” as difficult as they are to identify from the outside sometimes. And there are cold-blooded perpetrators, calculating and ruthless, who would walk over dead bodies for their own ends. They pursue their interests in a twisted, rational way; victims are for them consequences they took in their stride in order to reach a goal. There are people without consciences. Dupin had come to know them.

  “Where does your husband work?”

  Dupin had no idea what Rose was driving at now.

  “He works at the local council too.”

  “What does he do there?”

  “He’s the head of the water office.”

  Dupin pricked up his ears.

  “The water office?”

  “Yes, they’re responsible for the drinking water supply—clarifying facilities, the pipe system, all of that.”