He walked toward the car. At first he wasn’t sure. Someone was leaning against the door. Then he recognized her. The hands in the jacket pockets, the thumbs outside. Relaxed. Yet very serious.
She smiled at him.
“A walk in the evening air. Be careful—during the harvest, the aromas can bedazzle you. You have the craziest hallucinations. You see and dream the most fantastical things.”
“Oh, yes.”
Dupin would have liked to have a wittier answer ready.
“I tried to speak to Cordier for the first time. She’s not saying anything. Her lawyer is on his way. We’re searching her laboratory now. Her computer. Her mobile. We’re going to find something.”
Dupin had no doubt about that. Something had crossed his mind, something he ought to have asked Cordier at the river just now.
“Why did she call me from Lilou Breval’s mobile? The morning after she killed her?”
“She probably wanted to know who Lilou had called, her last conversations—to find out whether she had really spoken to the police.”
“Yes.”
That sounded like a good explanation. He’d been thinking along these lines too. But strangely it didn’t give him any comfort. With hindsight there was something sinister about the call. Something chilling.
“I wanted to bring you something. I was in Lilou’s house again; my parents’ house is very close by and that’s where I’m staying tonight.”
Dupin had thought so. Rose came from the gulf herself. That’s why she knew everything and everyone here: Madame Clothilde, the women on the ferry, the waitress in Le San Francisco …
“I think you should have this.” She drew a small notebook out of the right-hand pocket of her jacket and held it out to him. Without explanation.
He took it. Leafed through it.
It was a calendar. From the last year. With one dog-eared corner.
Dupin turned a few of the pages. Handwritten entries. Meetings and comments on the meetings that looked like they had been noted down afterward.
“The dog-ear was me. Look.”
It was the twelfth of May: “8:00—Georges Dupin/At home.” Next to that were a few hastily scribbled words. Very nice evening! A crazy one. Lovely. See often.
Lilou. It was Lilou’s calendar. The entry for their meeting last year.
Dupin could feel goose bumps. Before he could even say anything, Rose turned around and walked to her car. She waited until she had the door open before looking back one last time.
“I’ve got to get back. They’re waiting.”
“Thanks.” Dupin’s voice was firm and clear.
The “thanks” was for the book. And for so much more besides.
“Thank you.”
Dupin realized she had understood.
“We’ll be seeing more of each other, Monsieur le Commissaire. Wind and sun permitting.”
A moment later she was in the car and starting the engine. The Renault jolted forward and positively flew out of the parking lot.
* * *
Dupin switched on his engine and began to turn around.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the young woman who had served him at the boutique counter yesterday in the Centre du Sel. She was by herself. The Centre was long since closed. It looked like she was rearranging the shop window, absorbed in her work.
In the middle of the reversing maneuver, Dupin stepped on the brake. It had occurred to him yesterday and it would have been inappropriate then. But now …
He stopped right outside the entrance. He got out and knocked on the glass panel in the door.
The young woman noticed him—without the slightest surprise, it seemed—and came toward him. She pressed a button next to the sliding door so that it instantly slid open without a sound.
“Yes?”
She was just as taciturn as yesterday.
“I’d like to buy something, please. In the shop.”
He knew it sounded clumsy.
“Okay.”
She turned around and went back to the window display.
Dupin walked straight into the boutique.
There were a lot of things displayed in not much space. His gaze wandered around. Right ahead and to the left was the salt. Dozens of kinds. Including one that had caught Dupin’s eye yesterday: an assortment of three kinds of fleur de sel. Fleur de sel à l’aneth et au citron (for seafood and fish), fleur de sel au piment d’Espelette (for meat and poultry), and fleur de sel nature (for foie gras, grilled food, salad, vegetables). Excellent. And then three colorful little ceramic bowls. He would get these for Claire. He picked everything up and moved toward the cash register. The young woman seemed to have been watching him. They met there. He paid.
A short time later, the little old Peugeot was finally moving off. He left the Centre du Sel, the magic White Land, drove through the magnificent little town of Guérande one more time, crossed the Vilaine near La Roche-Bernard, and reached the gulf for the last time.
To the left of the Route Express, in the dying dark blue light from the west, he could see an offshoot of the little sea. A mysterious shimmering. That had been Lilou’s home. Her gulf.
Dupin glanced quickly at the passenger seat. There it was—Lilou’s little calendar. At some point he would drive to her house again. And sit on the large stone right by the water, in front of her enchanted garden. To reminisce and to think of her. From there, he’d go out looking for the little penguins; they must be somewhere round there.
Dupin had switched on the radio. Bleu Breizh. Skippy had been appointed an honorary citizen by the mayor of Arradon. And not only that: the wood that was Skippy’s new home would soon officially be known as “L’Australie.” The residents had made it known they wouldn’t mind if the kangaroo were to eat a lettuce from their vegetable beds occasionally. One woman had even found out what Skippy most liked to eat—for the next planting season. The last sighting had been in the afternoon. At a clearing. Skippy had been seen sunbathing. Apparently. Things were looking good for Skippy.
Dupin ran a hand through his hair. He would be in Vannes soon. He’d be halfway there then. He could feel how exhausted he was. It was the absurd stress of the last few days.
* * *
Dupin parked the car in the big parking lot at the front of the harbor, by the Ville Close. Outside the Amiral, where he always parked.
He didn’t go into the restaurant straightaway. He was hungry, but he wanted to stretch his legs a little first.
He walked slowly along the stone quay away from the parking lot. To the left was the sea, the bay with the Port de Plaisance, to the right were the vast squares and the row of old fishermen’s houses behind. Everything was bathed in the warm yellow light of the streetlamps that made the harbor area look like a backdrop from some gorgeous old film at night. The sky had turned a blackish purple and bathed the sea in the same shade—here and there yellow buoys peeked up out of it. Now and again a buoy emerged fully. There was a chill in the air now. It wasn’t cold, but it was very brisk. This wasn’t a mild summer’s evening anymore.
Dupin loved this walk. It was amongst his most important rituals, best taken early in the morning or at night, like now, no matter the season or weather. He walked on the shaky wooden planks and pontoons right onto the old town’s island, fortified with enormous defensive walls, the impregnable Ville Close where the footbridge abruptly ended. Spotlights had been set in the brattices underneath the battlements, making the walls blaze dramatically. Like in a huge, sublime open-air theater; the fortress completed by the star builder to the sun king—Sébastian Le Prestre de Vauban—was very impressive. The light fell down the enormous stone walls the way tar had once done. Above, dozens of lamps installed close together traced out a bright line that could be seen even from out at sea, many kilometers away, a daring symbol.
Dupin walked along the footbridge at the harbor, through a group of boats of all shapes and sizes. The sailboats’ gently swaying masts stretched boldly into the
darkness. The little bells attached to the tops of the masts created an ethereal concert that filled the whole harbor area on summer nights. He could even hear it from his apartment round the corner when the door to the narrow terrace was open. He and his father had always played a game when they were at the seaside in the summer holidays. They looked for the most marvelous boats in the harbor and told each other where they would set sail for in them. What great journeys they’d make in them. The adventures to be had on them.
Dupin paused at the end of the footbridge. He folded his hands behind his head and tipped his head back briefly. He would go and eat something now. And call Claire. And perhaps Rose, to find out whether Céline had confessed. Dupin turned and looked at the lights of the town.
Suddenly a smile appeared on his face, spreading right across it. He’d had an idea. He dug out his phone and dialed.
It took a while. Then she answered.
“Claire?”
“Georges? I”—she sounded sleepy, worn out—“I’d already gone to bed, it was chaos in the hospital today. I’d so hoped you’d call at some point. How’s your case going?”
“I just wanted to tell you I’m bringing brioche and croissants for breakfast.”
“You’re … what?”
“I’m taking the six o’clock train. You sleep in and I’ll wake you with breakfast.”
“Really?”
“Really. Now go back to sleep.”
“Okay.”
She was too tired to question anything.
“See you soon then, Georges.”
“See you soon.”
Dupin hung up.
It was a brilliant idea. And on Monday it would be fine for him to be back at eleven. He would book the table in La Palette for tomorrow evening. The table they should have had on Claire’s birthday. And they’d go for a walk in the Jardin du Luxembourg. On the first autumn day of the year.
And now, now he would go into the Amiral. And eat the sole he had wanted to eat in Le Croisic. Fried to a golden brown in salted butter. Salt from the White Land, the finest in the world.
Everything was going to be all right.
Acknowledgments
My dear Don Rinaldo “Che,” my dear Reinhold Joppich, thank you. Thank you very much. For everything.
ALSO BY JEAN-LUC BANNALEC
Murder on Brittany Shores
Death in Brittany
About the Author
JEAN-LUC BANNALEC is a pseudonym. The author divides his time between Germany and coastal Brittany, France. Death in Brittany, the first case for Commissaire Dupin, was published in Germany in March 2012 and sold 600,000 copies, spending many months on the bestseller list. Bannalec is also the author of Murder on Brittany Shores. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
The First Day
The Second Day
The Third Day
Acknowledgments
Also by Jean-Luc Bannalec
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE FLEUR DE SEL MURDERS. Copyright © 2012 by Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne/Germany. Translation copyright © 2017 by Sorcha McDonagh. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Cover photograph: © Rolf E. Staerk / Shutterstock.com; hand lettering by Soleil Paz
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Bannalec, Jean-Luc, 1966– author.
Title: The Fleur de Sel murders: a Brittany mystery / Jean-Luc Bannalec.
Other titles: Bretonisches Gold. English.
Description: New York: Minotaur Books, 2018. | First published May 2014 as Bretonisches Gold by Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne, Germany.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017045698 | ISBN 9781250071903 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781466883130 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | LCGFT: Detective and mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PT2662.A565 B74513 2018 | DDC 833/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017045698
eISBN 9781466883130
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact your local bookseller or the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First published May 2014 as Bretonisches Gold by Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne, Germany
First U.S. Edition: April 2018
The Fleur De Sel Murders Page 30