The Fleur de Sel Murders: A Brittany Mystery (Brittany Mystery Series)

by Jean-Luc Bannalec

  “Jaffrezic’s wife doesn’t know where her husband is either. And neither does anybody in the cooperative. He was there all day and only left around half past five. His wife says he sometimes goes fishing and always has the rods in his car. We’re checking if he’s at his usual fishing spot. On the large beaches beyond Le Croisic. Ground fishing. Perch, gilthead, pollack.” This sounded very professional and Dupin was impressed despite himself. “He’s not picking up his mobile. We’re trying it at regular intervals.”

  Rose was speaking in solemn tones that reminded Dupin of when they hadn’t been able to get through to Lilou the day before. He was starting to feel slightly uneasy too.

  “If we don’t find him soon, we’ll put out a search for him.”

  Dupin knew this would be a huge measure to take. But there seemed to be a ruthless perpetrator at large.

  “We’ll see. Let’s speak to Madame Bourgiot next instead. The forensics team has compared the fingerprints in Lilou’s parents’ house with Maxime Daeron’s: they’re his. So that explains that. There’s nothing else to report.”

  “We need to know all of the applications that were filed with the local authority and the region in relation to the salt gardens over the last few years. Applications for subsidies, for extensions to the salt marshes”—Dupin had wanted to say this earlier—“and we need to know the plans that Le Sel has for the White Land. For expansions of the marshes, for acquisitions, for changes to the manufacturing. We need to know their business practices. And the cooperative’s too.”

  “Inspector Chadron and another colleague have been at their offices for two hours and they’re researching everything. They’ll find whatever there is to find. Where are you, anyway?”

  “I’m already on my way.”

  “Madame Bourgiot isn’t free till eight. We’re seeing her at the Centre. You should really get going.”

  Dupin looked at his watch. It was more or less impossible.

  “Fine, eight o’clock. I’ll be there.”

  He hung up.

  He really ought to make a move. He took one last piece of terrine and the rest of the fig, stood up, rounded up the bill very generously, and left.

  By the time he got to the quay, he was already annoyed he hadn’t just taken the rest of the terrine with him, along with a piece of baguette. He hadn’t eaten all that much. And why had she said “really get going”? He had explained he was already on his way, hadn’t he?

  * * *

  Up until just before Vannes things had been moving quickly. The speed limit was seventy kilometers an hour and Dupin was driving at an average of a hundred and ten, without sirens, which he hated anyway. Then, beyond a blind bend, in a small wood, the traffic had come to a sudden stop. Out of nowhere. Dupin had just been in the middle of dialing Riwal’s number when he saw the cars in front of him. He slammed on the brakes with squealing tires and came to a stop a hand’s breadth away from the bumper of the car in front of him. Perhaps slightly less. Everything that had been on the front seat—the big map, the salted caramels, newspapers from the last few weeks—was now lying on the floor. Dupin had simply dropped his phone so that he could have both hands on the steering wheel, and it had slipped into the gap between the front seat and the hand brake. The car had been completely under control, yet he noticed his pulse was racing when he stopped. And he smelled the burning stench of overused brakes.

  There hadn’t been many cars in front of him, perhaps ten. There was an idyllic clearing to the right and left.

  Two men and a woman were approaching him, visibly upset. He was used to this—and it was one of the reasons why he would usually never dream of driving around in an official police car. As soon as anything happened, no matter what it was—the most banal thing, puzzling little things—and a police car and police officer happened to be in the vicinity, you inevitably became involved. Dupin rolled down the window.

  “Are you carrying a gun?”

  The question was posed by a slight man, around sixty, his voice anxious and unpleasantly pushy.

  “What is—”

  “Skippy! It almost rammed us.”

  Behind Dupin, two more cars came to a stop with extreme brake maneuvers.

  The second man was even more worked up. “On the radio they’re saying he might be mentally ill. Aggressive.”

  “In Australia, an aggressive red kangaroo attacked a ninety-four-year-old pensioner while she was hanging out the washing. It leapt through the washing at her and knocked her down. Then it jumped on her. She was in the hospital for three weeks. Multiple fractures.”

  The woman told her story like it was important scientific knowledge.

  “She hit him with a broom. Her dog was so frightened. The police drove it away with pepper spray.”

  The slight man looked hopefully at Dupin. “Are you carrying pepper spray on you?”

  Dupin hadn’t been able to say a word yet. And hadn’t known what to say. For a moment he wondered whether he was being pranked by one of those television programs.

  “You saw a kangaroo here?” was all that he managed to get out in the end.

  “It hopped across the road. Straight across. There was nearly an accident. So dangerous.”

  The two men were speaking in unison now.

  “I called the police right away. We didn’t think you’d come so quickly.”

  “They said Skippy is on his way home.”

  “Skippy?” Dupin was still trying to get his own mental bearings.

  “That’s what it’s called.”

  “Kangaroos have set places they always return to. It’s been looking for a home. Apparently this is his route; the police said so on the phone. It’s completely normal.”

  “It’s only a year old.”

  This time the woman’s voice sounded almost affectionate. Not the appropriate tone of voice for an aggressive red kangaroo.

  “I … I’m not here because of the kangaroo.”

  There was profound confusion on all three of their faces. And the fear returned.

  “You should get back into your cars. And keep the doors closed. The officers on duty will be here very soon.”

  All three looked relieved. At least they had a direct police order now.

  “Yes. This is a very dangerous situation. Anything could happen.”

  The slight man was already walking toward his car, the other two hurrying after him.

  Dupin wound the window up. He still hadn’t fully absorbed what had just happened.

  He started the engine, maneuvered his car out of its boxed-in position, turned around in one go, and stepped on the gas.

  It took a while for him to fish his mobile out of the gap with one hand.

  “Nolwenn?”

  “Monsieur le Commissaire?”

  “Are you familiar with Skippy?”

  “Well, I did tell you about him yesterday.”

  “I…”

  “The kangaroo that escaped from his enclosure near Arradon yesterday. They’ve been trying to catch him again but no luck so far. There are constant reports about it online, and on the radio. Along with the reports on the murder obviously. Bleu Breizh has set up a Kangaroo Watch. For every confirmed sighting of the kangaroo, you get a crate of Britt Blonde.”

  This was unbelievable. Everything about it.

  “It’s got ideal living conditions at the gulf, comparable to its habitat in Australia.”

  With some effort, Dupin refrained from asking any more questions. It was too absurd. And he would have had a huge number of questions. For instance, how could it be that Breton and Australian habitats were so similar—but given it was correct to speak of the Breton Caribbean (the Glénan) or the Breton South Seas (the Île d’Houat), and there was a beach here called “Plage Tahiti,” he let it go. There were many Brittanies, perhaps there was an Australian one too. And Dupin also thought it might be worth asking what the special link between the excellent Britt brewery and Australian marsupials was.

  “Monsieur le
Commissaire.” Nolwenn’s tone had changed. It was clear that the kangaroo topic was long since over and done with. “Maybe you’re coming home like this so that you can call Claire in peace again.”

  Dupin tried to compose himself.

  “I think so. I’ll call her later. When I have more time.”

  Dupin almost said in his own defense that he had tried her again earlier without success. That he had left messages. But that would have sounded too much like he had a guilty conscience.

  “So you should be back in Concarneau before midnight then. And it will still be her birthday. Apart from that: I think that all in all the Amiral would do you good this evening. After everything that’s happened.”

  He hadn’t given any thought to this evening yet. Or whether he would drive back at some point or stay here, but it sounded tempting: going back to Concarneau. Back home. To the Amiral. He would see. The wise move would definitely be to stay here and get a hotel room. He was bound to finish late, he would be utterly exhausted. Nolwenn had sounded slightly mysterious. But maybe he was just imagining it.

  “We’ll see. Bye, Nolwenn.”

  Dupin hung up and dialed Riwal’s number.

  “Boss?”

  “I want you to do something.” Dupin hesitated. “Or ideally Kadeg, and ideally immediately.” Kadeg was always showing off that he used to do rally driving back in the day, practically Paris-Dakar once (he claimed). “I want him to drive from La Roche-Bernard to Lilou’s parents’ house, park a few hundred meters beyond it in the direction of Pointe de Kerpenhir, simulate the murder and the removal of the body, then drive to Lilou Breval’s house, wait about, let’s say, five minutes, and then drive back to La Roche-Bernard. It would be best if he began and ended at Daeron’s house. Tell him to time how long it takes when he really hurries.”

  This still bothered him.

  “We’ll get it done, boss. I’ll let Inspector Chadron know too.”

  Rose seemed to have Kadeg and Riwal completely under her thumb, it was awful. They no longer did anything without reporting to her. He didn’t like it one bit. Dupin wanted to protest but something else occurred to him. It would be better this way:

  “Riwal—change of plan. Tell Kadeg to leave out the trip to Sarzeau in the simulation—Daeron could have done that later. After the calls that prove he was in La Roche-Bernard.”

  “All right. And one other thing, boss: the old woman in Kerpenhir who lives in the house next to Lilou Breval’s parents seems very credible. They sent an officer from Locmariaquer out especially, someone who knows the area and the people there very well, and has known the neighbor herself for years. Besides, her and Daeron’s statements match up on every detail.”

  That was important. Although Dupin had never really doubted this part of Daeron’s testimony. But still.

  “Fine.”

  “Also, since we’re on the topic, I thought of something else.” Riwal took a deep breath. “The treasures underneath the menhirs and dolmen are stored, according to legends and accounts, in mysterious blue vessels. Blue!”

  Dupin hung up. That was enough absurdity. He threw his mobile onto the passenger seat and stepped on the gas.

  A few minutes later, after a brief hesitation, he turned the radio on.

  Bleu Breizh.

  * * *

  At first glance, Madame Bourgiot was nowhere to be seen. Commissaire Rose was standing in the book corner of the Centre’s boutique, holding a heavy book. Dupin walked in a long arc, along the long glass wall, between the high-tech display walls and the scenes built to showcase the history of salt. He approached Rose from one side. He wasn’t sure if she had even noticed him. She seemed completely absorbed in the book. He could see the title now. Salt of the Guérande—Top Chefs’ Favorite Recipes. Glossy photographs.

  “Madame Bourgiot was meant to be here. We had arranged to meet. I’ve no idea where she is. No sign of Jaffrezic yet either.”

  Seeming surprisingly laidback, Commissaire Rose hadn’t even looked up. Dupin was twenty minutes late.

  “I … you know about the kangaroo of course, it…”

  Rose looked at him for a moment.

  “It crossed the road and…”

  He broke off. Rose was already—pointedly—lost in reading a recipe: poulet de Janzé en croûte de gros sel de Guérande. She didn’t seem in the least embarrassed—on the contrary. Her expression was one Dupin recognized from their conversation with Jaffrezic in the cooperative, when she had suddenly talked casually about the delicious salt lamb. Dupin had eaten that kind of chicken from Janzé at Henri’s once, the juiciest and most flavorsome chicken he’d had in his life, baked in pastry made from flour and gros sel.

  “It’s quick. Really simple.”

  Rose sounded like an expert. Dupin knew this was one of those things real chefs said that was only true for people like them. For laypeople it meant: you could try for years and you’d never succeed.

  “We’re waiting.”

  Rose’s words, something of a non sequitur, sounded like an order, as if everyone could do whatever they wanted until Madame Bourgiot arrived. By rights they ought to have had a few things to discuss. Rose turned the page, and even this was done perfectly calmly—and now she became absorbed by the pommes “Pont Neuf” à la fleur de sel et piment d’Espelette, Touquet potatoes cut into little sticks, roasted in fleur de sel and Espelette pepper. They had been Dupin’s favorite food as a child, and he had always called the potato wedges—modeled on the massive buttresses on the Pont Neuf in Paris—“fat fries,” and his bourgeois mother had been horrified every time. But that’s really what they were: fat fries.

  Walking around aimlessly, Dupin suddenly found himself in the middle of the Iron Age. In the “experience room,” amongst the first Celts. One of them was standing right next to him, life-size and made of wax, while another knelt behind him. The figures showed how they produced salt here in the Guérande using a special fire method. A few meters away, four Romans were bending down. Dupin realized that salt production in the third century, unlike thousands of years before that, was already starting to look like salt marshes. He walked in a zigzag—six hundred years in a matter of steps—past the Carolingians, and was now standing in front of four monks from the Landévennec commune, who had given salt production, through painstaking scientific studies, its final, or in other words, its current look. Unchanged for a thousand years. Even the design of the tools used today harked back to those days. “An open-air factory,” read the display board.

  Next to the monks was a map of Europe. Dupin loved maps. It was remarkable: for hundreds of years, major trade routes across the whole continent were determined by the salt from the Guérande, from the starting point of a tiny little town that had been phenomenally rich for half a millennium. It wasn’t just about a seasoning or the fact that humans need salt to survive—for centuries it was the only known way to preserve food, until the invention of the can at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

  Dupin took a step closer to the display board. A few times today a thought—a rather vague one—had crossed his mind, and he now found it illustrated here to some extent. The monks had often used the large pools for different purposes at the same time. Not just as water reservoirs. For farming shellfish, for instance, and fish (to this day, he learned, sole, perch, and eels swam in the reservoir pools). It was an intriguing idea: perhaps this case was about the salt pools and not about salt at all. Were the salt pools possibly used for something else? But if so—what? Unfortunately, Dupin didn’t have the faintest idea what this other thing might be.

  The sound of Rose’s mobile ringing wrenched Dupin away from his thoughts. With elegant speed, she put the book down and answered the call.

  “Yes?… Hmmm. I want you to ask his wife, friends, and colleagues where else he likes to go fishing. Get a few more police officers on it. It’s important … Yes, sounds good … Bye.” She hung up.

  “Jaffrezic isn’t at his usual spot,” she said.

&
nbsp; She sounded very serious again. What did that mean? Had Jaffrezic disappeared? Of course it could be that the events they were dealing with—which had revealed themselves so far through the shooting and Lilou’s murder—were still ongoing. Or were even getting worse. Had Jaffrezic made a run for it? Was he in danger? Or was he simply fishing at a different spot from usual?

  “And still,” Rose continued, “no sign of Madame Bourgiot. Maybe the two of them are miles away, together.”

  It hadn’t sounded like a joke.

  “We’ll keep waiting.” Rose sounded laidback again as she said this; it was only the somewhat delayed coda that was sharp: “For a few more minutes.”

  At first Dupin thought she intended to turn her attention to the cookbook again. Instead, she came over to him, walking swiftly past and toward the last display board as if she were looking for something specific.

  Dupin followed her.

  BLOODY SALT, was emblazoned across the board in menacing black letters. Various things were discussed. The gabelle, the crude salt tax imposed by French kings, which naturally gave rise to huge numbers of smugglers. Even more scandalously: in the Middle Ages Brittany was by no means part of France, so Bretons had legally bought salt untaxed and then sold it again in France—which counted as smuggling and, if you were unarmed, you were sentenced to the galleys but if you were armed you were sentenced to death immediately. A terrifying prospect that led to violent protests, and many people in the Guérande and Le Croisic lost their lives when the protests were crushed (in the course of the revolution, the people had done away with the salt tax—“free salt” had been the slogan. “Free salt for free citizens,” that kind of thing always made Dupin feel sentimental). The display board also recounted the adventurous tales of famous smugglers.

  “This is interesting.”

  Rose must have been reading twice as quickly as he was; it looked like she was scanning the lines.

  “Major salt thefts—and even more interestingly: huge plots. Intrigue and love.”

  Dupin was standing next to her. The board was about a “War of the Paludiers” in the sixteenth century in which several “clans” apparently pulled no punches in the fight for white gold. It specifically mentioned “sabotage and devastation.” And as with Romeo and Juliet, there was an impossible love—and subsequently the downfall of a dynasty. Salt involved a lot of money, lots and lots of money. A lot of money was always a surefire breeding ground for crime.