‘Straight away. And the Nuz daughters too. I need to know this about all of them.’
‘Absolutely, Monsieur le Commissaire.’
‘Keep in touch.’
Dupin hung up. He was already putting his phone away in his jacket when he hesitated and pressed redial.
‘Something else, Monsieur le Commissaire?’
‘I also want to know where they spent the day today. In great detail. Everyone. The last few hours. What they did. On the islands, or wherever they were.’
Goulch had throttled back the engines but Dupin accidentally screamed the last sentence, staring intently at Le Menn’s boat, which looked absurd, lying so far up a small patch of beach.
‘Do you have anything specific in mind?’
‘No. I just need to know this about everyone.’
‘Understood.’
Dupin hung up again and this time he stuffed his mobile deep into his pocket.
The engines died. It was perhaps fifty metres to the shore, the anchor was dropped, the two young police officers, were already in the process of lowering the dinghy with perfectly synchronised movements and a moment later they were coming aground on the beach at considerable speed. There was a severe jolt. The two police officers leapt out of the dinghy immediately and Dupin climbed after them, warning them: ‘We have no idea what’s going on here. Be careful.’
He pulled his gun out of his belt, a 9mm Sig Sauer, the national police-issue weapon. The others copied him.
The small group approached the boat quickly.
‘Police de Concarneau – hello? Is anybody there? Please give a sign.’
No reaction of any kind.
The two young police officers climbed onto the Merry Fisher immediately. Riwal, Goulch and Dupin positioned themselves, without saying a word, next to it. The dazzlingly white boat, with dark blue just on the lower part of the hull, seemed surprisingly large to Dupin up close. There was nothing remarkable visible on deck.
‘We’re going in.’
The young officers’ excitement was clear. They opened the door to the cabin and a moment later disappeared.
Still no one said a word. Dupin thought it was taking quite a long time for the pair to report back.
‘There’s nothing out of the ordinary here.’
Their voices were muffled.
‘Come back out. We’ll search the island.’
Dupin practically growled. He turned to Riwal and Goulch much more quietly.
‘Riwal, you go clockwise. Goulch, you anti-clockwise. I’ll take the abandoned house, we’ll meet there. Goulch, tell your two colleagues to guard the boat.’
Dupin and Riwal set off straight away. Goulch waited.
First, Dupin had to scale a few tall granite rocks leading to a kind of plateau which fell gently away to the middle of the island after a few steps, where the terrain was relatively flat. That’s where the house stood. It was possible to make it out clearly even from the plateau. Dupin stood still and looked around with a keen eye. To the left of the plateau Goulch was moving fast and nimbly over the stones close to the water, while a little further ahead, Riwal was walking on the right hand side of the island.
The house stood there inconspicuously, in complete silence. There was no one in sight. Dupin went ahead carefully, his gun grasped tightly in his right hand. He had to watch his step, the ground was uneven. He approached the house from behind. A small window was roughly boarded up with wooden slats. The slate roof on the other hand still seemed to be in astonishingly good condition, although covered in moss. The house was made of stone, built in the typical style for the region. It looked considerably more battered than the roof. Small pieces had broken off the walls in several places.
Dupin moved carefully around the house so that he was diagonally across from the front door. He waited there until Riwal and Goulch joined him.
‘Nothing of note, no footprints, nothing.’
‘Same here.’
Instinctively, Riwal and Goulch were speaking quietly.
‘Let’s take a look at the house.’
Dupin walked towards the door.
‘Monsieur Le Menn?’
Dupin had called out loudly, insistently.
‘Are you there, Docteur Le Menn?’
And again: ‘Docteur Le Menn – this is Commissaire Dupin from the Commissariat de Police Concarneau.’
Riwal and Goulch were following half a step behind Dupin and almost collided with him when he suddenly stopped dead. They both followed his gaze. A broken padlock lay on the ground. The door, repaired in a makeshift way with two large wooden slats, was ajar.
All three remained motionless.
‘We’re going in.’
Dupin got his gun into position and gave the door a powerful kick, so that it burst open with a tremendous bang. A moment later he was inside and immediately leapt to the wall on his right.
‘Commissariat de Police – is there anyone here?’
It was almost dark. It took a while for Dupin’s eyes to adjust to the dusky light and for him to be able to make out details.
The room was empty, dust lay centimetres deep on the broken wooden floorboards. On the left hand side there was a passageway where a door once used to be. There were clear footprints in the dust. Several. They led into the other room. Riwal and Goulch had come in too and were standing shoulder to shoulder next to him, guns at the ready. Dead silence, nothing to be heard apart from their breathing.
‘The other room,’ Dupin whispered.
Again he went ahead, slowly, the gun pointed at the passageway, pausing for a brief moment as though to summon his strength and then making an impressive lunge into the adjoining room. Riwal and Goulch followed suit.
Here too: nothing. No one. No Devan Le Menn. In contrast to the front room, furniture was piled up here, including the remains of two tables and a wardrobe. Riwal and Goulch suddenly had torches in their hands. Goulch stooped down to the blurry prints that could also be seen here in the layer of dust. They hadn’t uttered a word so far.
‘There were at least two people, I think. Maybe three, it’s hard to say. More than one anyway. We need forensics, we should move very carefully now. And somebody presumably stood here,’ Goulch pointed to a spot next to the tower of furniture.
‘Yes, call forensics. Tell them to come immediately.’
René Reglas, the greatest forensic expert in the world. Dupin shuddered at the thought of his pompous ‘crime scene work’. But there was no way round it.
‘I’ve already given them advance warning.’
Goulch left the room. Riwal looked around systematically with his torch, without moving from the same spot.
‘This is bizarre. Where is Le Menn? He came to the island on his boat, but he’s not here. How did he get away? Who else was here? And why did he come here anyway?’
Dupin didn’t know whether Riwal was talking to himself or to him.
‘Let’s search the beaches again. Perhaps we’ll find traces after all. A second boat must have landed somewhere. If Le Menn hasn’t disappeared into thin air, then he must have left the island on that second boat! I want to know what happened here!’
Dupin was furious. Although he didn’t know who or what with. With himself most likely.
‘Such bullshit. This just doesn’t make sense.’
All of this had happened right under his nose. Perhaps even this afternoon when he had been waltzing around the islands on board the Bakounine. Less than a kilometre away as the crow flies.
‘Let’s go.’
Dupin wanted to get out this stuffy dungeon. He left the stone house quickly and only stopped once he was a few metres away. Riwal and Goulch followed him. Silently, to be on the safe side.
In front of the house, about fifty metres away, was the island’s largest beach. Just before the sand, there was a kind of wall made from rounded granite blocks. Dupin headed for the beach. He came to a stop above the granite blocks, then squeezed between two of them and walked in tiny steps al
ong the high tide mark. Nothing. Nothing to be seen. Not even the beginnings of a lead.
Goulch and Riwal hadcaught up with him.
‘If there was a second boat here, it definitely landed on the other side of the island, not here in the chamber. Whoever was here, he certainly didn’t want to be seen. Let’s go back. Maybe the others have actually found something,’ Dupin said in a strained voice.
Goulch and Riwal nodded.
They walked back, past the house, up the gentle slope until they arrived back at the plateau. Apart from the beach directly in front of them, where Le Menn’s boat and their dinghy lay, they could see three more small beaches from up here.
‘Come on, Goulch, we’ll take the beaches to the left, Riwal, you take the one on the right.’
They climbed carefully down the steep rocks.
Goulch and Dupin hadn’t reached the first of the two adjacent beaches when they heard Riwal calling.
‘Over here! – Over here!’
They turned on their heels.
Half a minute later, both of them were standing, panting, next to Riwal, who was on a narrow beach surrounded by flat rocks. The two young police officers had joined them.
Riwal had crouched down and was inspecting the sand in front of him.
‘There are footprints here. Up ahead here, prints of a person running in this direction,’ he pointed a little to the left, ‘and there, of two people moving in our direction.’
It was clear. Dupin stood up and followed the tracks. They led towards the water and vanished where the sand was still damp from the high tide. On the other side they ended at a field of small stones. The big rocks began beyond it, which didn’t rise quite so steeply upwards here.
Dupin ran a hand roughly through his hair.
‘Le Menn really did come alone. As did a second person. For whatever reason, they spent some time together in the abandoned house and then left the island on the second person’s boat.’
‘Maybe they were at a different part of the island too.’
Dupin and Goulch stared at Riwal.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Well, maybe they weren’t just in the house. Maybe the house wasn’t the main reason for coming to the island at all. Maybe they – or one of the two – were looking for something? Burying something or digging it up?’
‘What makes you think that?’
Dupin was irritated.
‘I don’t know,’ Riwal’s gaze swept over the water, he was murmuring now. ‘What happens on the islands does not always conform to reality as we know it. We’ve known that for a long time.’
Dupin sighed.
‘Forensics should take a look at the house – and search the whole island. Thoroughly. I have to make a call.’
He walked a few metres away. He needed to speak to Le Coz. To know what he thought he already knew anyway. He dialled the number. Nothing happened. He tried again. Again the connection went dead. He gaped at the screen. And went back to the group.
‘Riwal, we’ve got no reception.’
There was real accusation in his voice and he couldn’t suppress it.
‘That happens on the islands.’
‘This cannot be happening!’
This was no way to work.
‘Unfortunately I wouldn’t even know who to radio.’
It was impossible to have comprehensive conversations over radio anyway, in Dupin’s opinion. But Goulch meant well.
‘We’ll go back to Saint-Nicolas straight away. And Goulch, radio the coastguard. A helicopter is to have the area around the island searched.’
Dupin marched resolutely to the beach where Le Menn’s boat and the dinghy lay. Goulch and Riwal followed him. He checked for the reception symbol every few metres with increasing rage. In vain. It didn’t even change on the water, not even at the spot where he had still been on the phone on the way there. It was enough to make you tear your hair out.
Shortly before they moored at the quay, the first bar had appeared on the screen and a moment later all of them at once. Dupin had stormed over to the operations table in the Quatre Vents as if he wanted to make an arrest.
‘What have we got?’
A list lay in front of Le Coz. Dupin sat down next to him. No matter how hectic things were, Le Coz was calmness itself, without being slow. He was by far the oldest and the most experienced person in the commissariat. He still had two years to go till his retirement. His knowledge, his accuracy and above all his level-headedness had made made Dupin take to him from the beginning.
‘I’ve just consulted Bellec again. Leussot, the biologist, was at sea from nine o’clock, on board his boat. He arrived here half an hour ago.’
‘I’m concerned with…’ Dupin reflected, trying to calculate the last high tide, ‘with the time from half past twelve till four o’clock. What did Leussot do after I was with him? He would have easily had enough time to go to Brilimec.’
‘He says he stayed at the place where you visited him all day. We won’t be able to verify that.’
‘Oh, wonderful!’
Dupin clasped the back of his head. Le Coz was right.
Riwal had now arrived at the operations table too and sat down.
‘Keep going, Le Coz.’
‘This diver, Monsieur Tanguy, has guests visiting from Brest, a delegation of marine archaeologists. They are sitting here in the Quatre Vents right now. Out the front on the terrace. He picked them up in Concarneau at three o’clock.’
‘And before that?’
‘Before that he was here, he says. Because of the preparations. He was also here overnight. On his boat.’
‘When did he set out?’
‘Around half past one, he said.’
‘Alone?’
‘Alone.’
Fantastic. How were they meant to find out whether he had taken a detour to Brilimec? He would have had enough time to do it. And even to take Le Menn somewhere too. As victim, perpetrator or accomplice. While Le Coz was speaking, Dupin had begun to make notes.
‘The mayor?’
‘He was working at home in his office almost all day, in…’
‘I know.’
‘Exactly, you visited him this morning, he told us. Then just between four o’clock and five o’clock he had an official engagement. In the local kindergarden. Monsieur Du Marhallac’h was very cooperative.’
‘Witnesses? The kindergarden children of course. It will be difficult for the time in the office. He claims to have talked to his wife on the phone several times, she is probably in London. On the landline. That can be verified.’
‘Brilliant.’
Dupin could not have enunciated this word with greater cynicism.
‘The younger Nuz daughter was at her boyfriend’s place, they were in Quimper, the older one was working here in the Quatre Vents all day. Solenn Nuz was on the mainland. Apparently she runs errands every Tuesday and Friday. She left at half past ten and only got back an hour ago. She was in Fouesnant, in the mairie and ended in Concarneau. She came back with lots of big shopping bags. She ate in the Amiral at lunchtime, we were able to check that.’
Dupin felt a brief feeling of joy at the mention of the Amiral.
‘And Madame Lefort?’
‘Bellec is speaking to her right now.’
‘Madame Barrault – the diving instructor?’
Le Coz looked at his notes.
‘She ran a course this morning, until one o’clock, then she ate at home. In the afternoon you were out with her of course and afterwards she went diving herself. She has also only just returned. Around the same time as Leussot.’
‘Where does Madame Barrault live?’
‘In the second house over there, with the triangular roof…’
‘I know it,’ he said. ‘And she was alone at home over lunchtime?’
‘So she says. She thinks there definitely aren’t any witnesses.’
Dupin couldn’t help smirking. That sounded very much like Madam
e Barrault.
‘And what about old Monsieur Nuz, Solenn Nuz’s father-in-law?’
‘You didn’t mention Pasacal Nuz. But I did just speak to him. He is – a little withdrawn. He was in the Quatre Vents in the morning, reading the paper at the bar, then he was at home. At four o’clock he headed for the Moutons in his boat, apparently he does that every day, his granddaughter vouched for that. Headed off towards the shoals of mackerel, he came back at six with a pile of fish.’
‘Okay.’
A kind of high-pitched fanfare suddenly rang out. Le Coz answered the call straight away.
‘Yes?’
He turned to Dupin.
‘Bellec. He’s got the additional information. Shall I put it on loudspeaker?’
Le Coz took Dupin’s hesitation as agreement, pressed a button and placed the phone on the table in front of him.
‘Bellec. We’re all listening now.’
‘Bonjour, Monsieur le Commissaire. I…’
This was always a horrific situation, Dupin thought, he hated talking hands-free like this.
‘Fire away, Bellec.’
They needed to make progress.
‘Madame Lefort was on Saint-Nicolas all day long, she was on the phone several times, including with her notary. She was in her office in the sailing school mostly, but walked back to her house several times. She went for a few walks. Madame Menez came over to her house for about half an hour at lunchtime. After their conversation she left to go to the sailing school on Penfret, to meet Madame Menez again, at around quarter past six.’
Even this was vague in parts and, where witnesses could confirm it in detail, they could only do so with a great deal of effort. This much was clear: for someone who was on the islands anyway, three-quarters of an hour would have sufficed for the Brilimec episode, depending of course on what had happened to Le Menn …
‘Madame Lefort seemed very concerned that she is now the prime suspect, also because she was questioned again so soon after the long conversation she had with you. I assured her that these were all routine enquiries.’
In truth this was the least of Dupin’s worries right now. She should be anxious.
‘And the assistant, Madame Menez?’
‘Madame Menez appeared to be remorseful, although she seemed stubborn. She had several meetings with various sailing teachers today, in the office. At lunchtime she was at Madame Lefort’s house, as I mentioned. Then she ate in the Quatre Vents and then finally had long team conferences with the heads of accommodation on Cigogne and Penfret.’
Murder on Brittany Shores Page 24