Death in Pont-Aven

by Jean-Luc Bannalec

  ‘I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘Then I’d like the museum searched. Especially the basement.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For anything out of place – the original painting, who knows? – and for any further copies. Most of all I want Salou to take a look at the painting, that copy of it I mean. I want him to look for fingerprints on the copy that Beauvois claims to have stolen from the restaurant. If what he says is true, then the murderer hung it there.’

  ‘I’ll call Salou straight away.’

  It occurred to Dupin that he had clean forgotten to tell Salou yesterday that his examination of the frames had been rendered pointless by his conversation with Sauré. Salou would surely have read about the Gauguin in the paper this morning and would be assuming that the restaurant work was to do with the actual painting. He didn’t know anything about a copy. And even though he must have spent most of his time on the forensic evidence at the cliffs yesterday, he certainly wouldn’t be overjoyed.

  ‘And tell Salou that he can forget about examining the frame. That we’ve received some new information… No need to tell him any more than that.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And then I want to see André Pennec in the breakfast room in… in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Okay. I’m standing beside Inspector Labat now. I’m handing him the phone.’

  ‘Labat?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve –’

  ‘Listen, I’m giving you a special mission,’ Dupin was sure Labat would like the sound of that. ‘I need you to drive to Quimper right now and question Beauvois. Le Ber will tell you everything that happened last night. I want you to be very aggressive in the interview, do you understand? I want to know what he’s been doing recently, every little detail. Everything. I want him to name possible witnesses for every alibi. Insist on it. Have him tell his story two or three times. Pay attention to the details!’

  There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment. ‘Understood.’

  ‘This is extremely important, Labat. Make sure we know everything, and I mean everything, that Monsieur Beauvois has to say this time. Every last thing.’

  ‘You can count on me. You should call Prefect Guenneugues straight away though, he’s already called me twice. He was angry he had to find out about the painting from a newspaper.’

  ‘Hang on, Labat, this cannot be happening, this is unbelievable…’

  Dupin could see he had no choice but to overtake, but it wouldn’t be easy. He was behind a tractor with a trailer of manure on the winding, blind-cornered street between Trégunc and Névez. It was doing thirty at the most. It smelt foul.

  ‘What do you mean, Monsieur le Commissaire?’

  Dupin accelerated hard and pulled ahead of the tractor, only just managing to get back in his lane in the face of an oncoming vehicle.

  ‘Labat?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘We’ve got to make some progress.’

  ‘I’ll get going.’

  ‘Pass me back to Le Ber.’

  He heard the telephone being passed back.

  ‘Le Ber?’

  ‘Yes, Monsieur le Commissaire?’

  ‘Take the phone to Madame Lajoux.’

  Dupin knew this was a strange situation. Le Ber didn’t answer, but Dupin could hear him walking back down the stairs whose loud creaks and groans betrayed their hundred years. Then he heard Le Ber explaining the situation to Madame Lajoux – which clearly took some time – before finally handing her the phone.

  ‘Is that you, Monsieur le Commissaire?’

  ‘Bonjour, Madame Lajoux, I hope you’ve slept well.’

  ‘Me? Yes, thank you.’

  ‘I just have one question, Madame Lajoux. I would like to know whether you knew of a copy of the Gauguin? Did you ever hear about one?’

  ‘A copy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No. There was no copy.’

  ‘We’re aware of two copies so far, Madame Lajoux.’

  ‘Two copies? Of the Vision?’

  ‘I thought one of these two copies may have been kept in the little room upstairs next to Pennec’s room.’

  ‘Monsieur Pennec never mentioned a copy. It’s very unlikely there’s any copy.’

  ‘There are two.’

  ‘No. There aren’t two either.’

  Dupin was sure this could have been a dialogue in an absurdist play. But he had found out what he needed to know. ‘Do you know the paintings that are up there?’

  ‘No. I mean, yes. I know which paintings weren’t hung up again after the renovation work, of course, and that these were then kept there.’ She hesitated. ‘But maybe there were some that were there before that.’

  ‘But you never saw them yourself?’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t. I can’t look after everything.’

  ‘I just wanted to check.’

  ‘I would be surprised if there were a copy. He never mentioned it.’ She seemed to be speaking more to herself than to Dupin.

  ‘You can hand me back to Inspector Le Ber, Madame Lajoux, many thanks again.’

  ‘Absolutely, Monsieur le Commissaire.’

  ‘Le Ber?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m here now. I mean I’ve just arrived in Pont-Aven.’ Dupin was actually already at the first roundabout. He really had made good progress.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘First, André Pennec. We can get started soon.’

  ‘I’ll let him know right now.’

  André Pennec was already sitting in the breakfast room wearing a perfectly tailored, expensive-looking, dark suit, a white shirt and a ridiculous red and yellow patterned tie. He looked defiantly nonchalant, having settled himself in the exact chair where Madame Cassel had been sitting earlier. He looked up when Commissaire Dupin came into the room, making a show of the effort it cost him. His superior gaze alighted briefly on Dupin.

  ‘Where were you yesterday, during the day, evening and night?’ Dupin didn’t wait for an answer. He didn’t want to keep his anger under control. He didn’t see any reason to any more. ‘I’d like precise statements, not vague ones.’

  It was clear Pennec was very close to retaliating, given Dupin’s tone and aggression. Dupin was practically counting on it. For whatever reason, Pennec decided otherwise.

  ‘I decided to make use of my stay here in Brittany so I met with some party colleagues to discuss a number of issues. Members of various national committees, of which I am also a member on behalf of my département. I can have a list of everyone I spoke to sent to you, if it makes you happy. That lasted from nine in the morning until nine in the evening, practically non-stop apart from lunch. In the evening I had a long dinner with Gilbert Colloc, the Chairman of the Union for the whole of Brittany, the opposition leader. An old friend.’

  ‘I want the list immediately.’

  ‘We didn’t finish up until half twelve, we were sitting in La Fontaine aux Perles. I’ll gladly give you that address too. But moving on to more important matters, how’s your investigation going? One of the most valuable paintings in the world, a Gauguin that has lain undiscovered until now, a story that is making international news involving two deaths in as many days. Have you caught the perpetrator? Arrested a suspect? When are you going to convict them?’ Pennec was enjoying taunting Dupin and made no effort to hide it.

  ‘Where were you on Saturday evening?’

  ‘I would love to bestow this information upon you too. I had certainly hoped you would devote your time to more important things. But it’s your investigation. I was at a dinner given by the mayor of Quimper. There were ten guests in our party, all of whom could see me the entire evening, you’ll be pleased to hear. It went on until around one in the morning. I assume Loic Pennec’s time of death was before one o’clock and I couldn’t have been with him before two.’

  ‘I’m very pleased to hear there are witnesses, Monsieur Pennec. Truly. And I’d be most obliged if you could perhaps furnish us with
a blow-by-blow account of all that you have done since you arrived here in Brittany. You are supporting our police work tremendously, it really is exemplary. Worthy of a public servant.’

  André Pennec was perfectly composed. ‘So was it murder? The death of Loic Pennec I mean?’

  ‘We can’t say yet.’

  ‘Of course not, no. Are you aware that two members of a great Breton family have met with their deaths in the space of two days?’

  ‘Thank you for the concise summary, Monsieur Pennec.’

  ‘And the break-in at the crime scene? Which you didn’t mention during our last conversation, even though it had happened only a few hours before. Have you been able to make any headway on that one?’

  ‘Regrettably I can’t reveal any information in connection with that matter.’

  ‘I assume that the painting remained unscathed during the break-in at the scene?’ André Pennec knew this was the crux of the matter, and had pre-empted Dupin’s questions about the painting.

  ‘Correct.’ Dupin was annoyed that he hadn’t brought it up himself.

  ‘And you’ve made sure that the painting is the original?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well that would be a cheap trick wouldn’t it? Replacing the painting with a copy. But surely you’ll have long since excluded that possibility.’

  Dupin didn’t react. ‘How long have you known about the painting, Monsieur Pennec?’

  ‘Since my father told me. And Pierre-Louis and I, we used to be very close. It was a family matter so of course we spoke about it.’

  ‘So you’ve always known about the undiscovered Gauguin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The painting was a part of your father, Charles Pennec’s legacy. He excluded you from the inheritance in his will however.’

  ‘That’s just how it was. It’s a known fact. And the painting belonged to the hotel.’

  ‘You began legal proceedings to fight the provisions of your father’s will. You were hardly indifferent.’

  ‘What are you trying to get at, Monsieur le Commissaire?’

  ‘And your brother categorically excluded you from his will in the same way, a full thirty years ago, once and for all.’

  ‘I have no idea what this conversation is about.’

  ‘You never had a chance to inherit the painting – or at least a part of it.’

  Pennec didn’t answer.

  ‘If the provisions of your half-brother’s will hadn’t excluded you too, you would have inherited a considerable sum of money three days ago, somewhere in the millions.’

  ‘Look, you’ve said it yourself: I don’t gain anything from my half-brother’s death. And quite apart from having an airtight alibi, I’m also utterly lacking in motive.’

  ‘In your disappointment and anger you might have thought of other ways to get hold of the painting.’

  ‘You can keep wasting your time if you like, that’s completely up to you of course. You’re heading up the investigation, you’re the Commissaire. I tell you though, everyone’s patience is wearing thinner by the hour; just yesterday someone in Rennes asked me why there weren’t any results yet.’

  ‘Thank you… this has been a very fruitful conversation, Monsieur Pennec. You have been most helpful.’

  Pennec’s reply came after just a slight hesitation, he was very quick. ‘No problem, no problem at all. It’s a pleasure and as you say, clearly a civic duty. A duty I’m especially keen to discharge as a public representative.’

  Dupin stood up. He’d had enough. ‘Au revoir, Monsieur Pennec.’

  André Pennec made no move to stand up. ‘I wish you the best of luck with your investigation. Seems like you need it.’

  Dupin walked out of the breakfast room, down the stairs and straight out of the hotel. He needed to get out into the fresh air. Take a little walk. He was sick of this, of everything, and the day had only just begun. He couldn’t go on like this. He detested André Pennec. Neither of them made a secret of what they thought of each other. And yet… it wasn’t him. He wasn’t the murderer. Or he didn’t commit the murder himself, anyway.

  Dupin walked down rue du Port. The streets were still quiet as the galleries and shops wouldn’t open until half ten. He walked to the harbour and stood there for a little while in the place where he always stood, right at the beginning of the pier. Then he walked on, along the western bank of the Aven, further downstream than he had been before.

  Here, where the harbour came to an end, Pont-Aven actually looked a little like Kerdruc or Port Manech. The hills on either side of the Aven were less steep here, sloping gently upwards from the banks. Plants grew between the undulating hills like in a botanic garden. There were palm trees every few metres, including the tall, thick ones Dupin liked so much, which always grew in little groups and towered high overhead. Huge rhododendron bushes, gorse and camellias. It smelt like morning, like the sea and the seaweed-slick ground of low tide. The handful of houses on the very outskirts of the village were almost hidden amongst the greenery, with their rambling, rolling gardens. Real villas. The street ended here, in fact the whole village ended here; after this point there was just a muddy little path. This was where the river began – the inlet began its meandering, alternately widening, narrowing, forming streams, pools, big sandbanks. But above all this was where the woods began, the thick, enchanted forests of oak and beech, full of mistletoe, moss and ivy. The legendary Bois d’Amour was held in great esteem by the artists at the end of the nineteenth century and appeared in dozens of their paintings.

  Without really thinking, Dupin had started following the path into the wood. It forked now and again but he stayed close to the river. His mobile kept vibrating with numbers he didn’t recognise or that he didn’t want to answer. Guenneugues called twice.

  Dupin had been walking for almost three quarters of an hour. He hadn’t meant to walk this far at all. He hadn’t taken in much of the landscape around him. His thoughts had been swirling aimlessly around his head and his mood had darkened even further. Bizarrely, he felt even more tired in the fresh air. The walk hadn’t helped at all. What he very urgently needed now was more caffeine; he should have gone to a café. This walking around seemed preposterous now – he had found himself at a desperate juncture in a difficult case and had upped and gone for a walk through wild Celtic woods.

  The narrow path led directly back to the bank. Dupin stood still. He should go back the way he had come. The Aven was a small river here at low tide, flowing gently in its channel right down to the sea. His phone vibrated again. Dupin saw Nolwenn’s number. This time he picked up.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m standing in the Bois d’Amour.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what are you doing there?’

  ‘I’m thinking.’ Dupin knew it sounded silly. And it was. But he also knew that Nolwenn was used to this.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘You’d like to tell me the names of all the people who’ve got in touch as a matter of urgency and absolutely have to speak to me. And also that there is a lot going on.’

  ‘Are you making progress?’ Nolwenn knew it wasn’t a good sign when he didn’t get in touch himself.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Don’t lose hope; I’ll smooth things over as much as I can. You know Brittany rests on very old and very solid landmasses.’

  This was one of Nolwenn’s mantras. Their significance in any given situation usually remained a complete mystery to him but Dupin thought it was a good saying nonetheless.

  ‘Very solid landmasses. And granite on top. Massive blocks of granite.’

  ‘Exactly, Monsieur le Commissaire.’

  The saying had an undeniably calming effect on him.

  ‘I have to call that cranky old Prefect, don’t I? And I’m on the point of being kicked out of the force?’

  ‘I think you should call him,
yes.’

  ‘I will. I just want to –’ Dupin didn’t finish his sentence. He stood there motionless for a moment. ‘Oh shit.’

  He smacked his forehead and ran his hands through his hair over and over. It had come to him. It had come to him, the thing that had been dimly running through his head all day yesterday and all night too. The thing that hadn’t been quite right. The point in the conversation where he had let himself get confused.

  ‘Hello? Monsieur le Commissaire? Are you still there?’

  ‘I’ll call you right back.’

  ‘Please do.’

  Dupin hung up. This was it. If he wasn’t mistaken. Thoughts were racing through his head now and the pieces were beginning to fall into place.

  He had to act now.

  If he walked quickly, it might only be half an hour to his car. He contemplated whether Le Ber might be able to pick him up somewhere. But by the time he had got to somewhere Le Ber could pick him up, he would long since have reached his own car.

  The first thing would be to find out exactly where he needed to go. He leafed through his notebook as he walked along; he knew he had written it down. He found what he was looking for, a scribble at the edge of a page he had scrawled all over. Then he scrolled through the dialled numbers on his phone’s tiny screen. He wasn’t absolutely sure whether it was the number for the notary but he hadn’t dialled many numbers in Pont-Aven. It must be her.

  ‘Madame Denis?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Dupin here.’

  ‘Of course. Bonjour, Monsieur le Commissaire. I hope you’re well. I read Le Figaro. The case has – how should I put it – become even bigger.’

  ‘True, Madame Denis. Look, I need some information.’

  ‘I’d be happy to help if I can.’

  ‘You spoke about two larger plots of land belonging to Pierre-Louis Pennec, which he himself had inherited, the ones with warehouses. I noted it down: one in Le Pouldu and one in Port Manech. Is that right?’