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.”
“Here in the Guérande?”
“Yes, for the whole peninsula.”
“Thanks for speaking to us, Madame Bourgiot.” There was no trace of friendliness in Rose’s voice now. This was an abrupt end to the conversation.
Shortly afterward the commissaires left the glass office.
Madame Bourgiot remained seated. It would have been impossible to say what was going through her mind.
* * *
The three inspectors were waiting in the dusty parking lot in front of the Centre du Sel. In the golden sunshine of early evening, Riwal and Chadron were chatting animatedly while Kadeg, standing a little apart from them, looked into the distance, grumpy and sulking.
“Along here.”
Without further explanation, Rose made straight for a lane next to one of the large salt silos and they walked right down to the end of it. This was where some designated nature trails began, narrow and unpaved. Two signs showed the way—SHORT LOOP (20 MINS) and LONGER LOOP (60 MINS). Rose turned onto the “longer loop” path, which led sharply to the left. They were on the edge of the salt marshes. On the right-hand side were the vast salt gardens, a world of their own. But in front of them a different, completely unexpected landscape opened up. An almost jungle-like wood, thick, wild, low-hanging willows where a canal began, flowing straight as an arrow and disappearing far into the distance. Probably reaching as far as the enchanted Black Land, the Parc de Brière, a vast landscape of turf, moorland, and water, full of canals and lagoons that Dupin had driven through with Henri last year on the way back from Le Croisic. Where the canal began, there was a wooden footbridge out of a picture book, old and overgrown with pale moss. Tethered to this were three jet-black rowing boats with green seats.
In the shadow of the huge willows was a wooden picnic table with benches on either side. Rose, who was clearly familiar with all of this, was almost there already. Grasses grew along the canal in all kinds of green and yellow shades. The scenery was idyllic. Lavishly bathed in a mild, golden light.
“Someone must have drugged Maxime Daeron, perhaps even in the garage. They placed the body in the position in which the shot was fired. Then guided his finger.”
Commissaire Rose, who seemed to take no notice of the fairy-tale landscape, had unceremoniously sat down during this concise report. The three inspectors followed suit, as did Dupin. A picnic party. This conversation in this idyll. There was something strange about it all. But at least they wouldn’t be disturbed here.
“That would explain the smudge of gunpowder residue too.” Unsurprisingly, an eager Kadeg was the first to respond. But he was right.
It must have been more or less how Rose described it. If it wasn’t suicide. And Dupin was convinced of that by now. Rose added: “It was perfectly staged. The plan might just have easily come off.”
“You’ve got to insert yourself into the perspective and psyche of the perpetrator. As if you were writing a crime novel. That’s how the experts do it.”
Everyone looked at Riwal for a moment, who noticed their glances. It infuriated Dupin. The prefecture had made a big fuss of launching a qualification program for inspectors. Riwal had started his course two months ago, “The Perpetrator’s Psychology—An Indispensable Criminological Tool.” Kadeg’s course was coming up in October—and in fact it gave Dupin even more cause for concern: “Decipher the Body’s Signals—How the Limbic System Betrays the Perpetrator.”
“It’s all possible,” Rose continued on systematically and calmly, “at least as far as Daeron and the gun go. It might be his, it might not. And if it is, there would still be any number of explanations. We don’t even know for sure that Maxime Daeron was in the salt marshes on Wednesday night. All we know is that he lied about being with his wife.”
“If the perpetrator did drug Daeron, he must have got his hands on one of those new kinds of anesthetics. Depending on what it was, that might not have been at all straightforward.” Kadeg had rattled this off like a particularly nerdy schoolboy.
“We’re assuming the perpetrator has access to biochemical knowledge anyway. That could include medical knowledge too. The perpetrator themselves or one of their associates. Access to knowledge and a laboratory. Then it would be a piece of cake,” Riwal concluded matter-of-factly.
“So who has access to what knowledge exactly? And access to which laboratories via what links? What do we know?” This still seemed to Dupin like a solid starting point.
“I’ve done extensive research into the three women on that point,” Kadeg said. “I’ll start with Madame Laurent. She’s a trained biologist.”
“Madame Laurent is a biologist?”
This hadn’t really been a proper question from Dupin, more of a cry of surprise. Even though it was close to her profession, of course, he had never thought of it before. He took out his notebook and began to take notes. Kadeg didn’t let himself be distracted in the slightest.
“She studied in Bordeaux. A native of Rennes. But she has never worked as a biologist, not even at Le Sel. She has been involved in management from the beginning. Le Sel has several of its own food laboratories, and also one in Vannes, but we haven’t established any particular link between her and this laboratory as of yet. She also has an uncle who is a third-generation paludier in the Guérande.” Kadeg was reading aloud from a piece of paper and intoning every sentence as though it were the critical accomplishment of long, demanding study. “Madame Cordier has a degree in food chemistry which is its own course at the Université Paris Sud. She specialized in food law and got a degree in it at the age of just twenty-three. She comes from Guérande town and is head of the department at the state institute in Vannes. Apparently she may become the overall head of the institute soon.” Kadeg left an artful pause, as though he were preparing for the climax of his speech. “Madame Bourgiot is an agricultural scientist; she also studied in Paris, which usually includes courses in biology and chemistry. We don’t know of any direct link between Madame Bourgiot or the Centre du Sel and a laboratory. After a brief time off, she came directly to the Centre after graduating. She’s from round here too, from a little village between Le Croisic and Saint-Nazaire.”
“Brilliant. All the suspects are getting even more suspect.”
Dupin placed one hand on the back of his neck. In fact, all of this wasn’t that remarkable: anyone who worked here, who was involved in salt, had in all likelihood pursued these kinds of career paths.
Two huge birds suddenly flew just above their heads. Dupin practically ducked. They landed by the canal at a spot where the bank was flat. They had remarkably long legs. No one else seemed to pay them any notice.
Chadron took over now. “Monsieur Jaffrezic has no apparent, specific link to chemistry or biology. He didn’t study them or have any training in them. He came here from Paris at the end of the seventies. A hippie. He—”
“A hippie?” Dupin was gobsmacked, but then again, why shouldn’t Jaffrezic be a hippie?
“In the seventies lots of dropouts came to the White Land searching for a life in harmony with nature, something original, contemplation,” Rose said respectfully. “With their idealism they made a huge contribution to the survival and rebuilding of the salt gardens. At the beginning there was of course some serious conflict with the long-established paludiers.”
“How old is Jaffrezic?”
“Sixty-three.” Chadron took over once more.
“Sixty-three?”
The whole harmony and contemplation thing seemed to have worked; Dupin would have put Jaffrezic in his early fifties, around ten years younger than he was.
Chadron ignored Dupin’s response and continued. “The cooperative works with one particular laboratory. Nourriture sécure. Has done for the last fifteen years. All professional communications ar
e conducted through an employee of the cooperative, but of course Jaffrezic and the director know each other well. Very well, apparently. They’re friends, in fact. We…”
“Friends who go fishing together sometimes?” Dupin nearly jumped out of his seat.
“We’re checking whether it was him who went fishing with Jaffrezic last night. We’ll know that soon.”
Chadron was good. Riwal gave her an appreciative look; Kadeg looked sulkily at her.
“Paul Daeron’s company built its own small-scale laboratory five years ago. Which is normal for a business of its type and size.”
“Where is the laboratory?”
“At company headquarters.”
When they came across the algae, Dupin had thought, with a certain investigatory euphoria, that he finally had reliable evidence that would drastically reduce the pool of suspects. But Rose had been right, it didn’t help to reduce it much. Basically not at all. It was moot. Dupin was muttering, his gaze sweeping along the endless canal.
“We’ve got to—”
Rose’s mobile rang. She looked at the screen and stood up immediately. “Just a moment.”
She took a few steps and stopped directly beneath the willows with the low-hanging branches so that she was no longer visible. She seemed to be speaking very softly. Not a word was audible.
There was total silence at the picnic table. Dupin’s gaze couldn’t help roaming back to the two large birds. They were still there, and apparently on the hunt. One had just spotted something, perhaps a poor frog. Quick as a flash, its beak swooped down. Dupin liked frogs. He had always enjoyed playing with them as a child.
“We’ve got to move on. So, the alibis.” Rose’s voice tore Dupin away from his thoughts. Her phone call had been short and apparently she didn’t intend to share anything about it. On the contrary, her expression was bullish, as though someone else had interrupted this important discussion. “What about Madame Cordier? Initially we didn’t even pay attention to her. What about her Wednesday evening, the party?”
“I’ve already spoken to three witnesses. There were over a hundred guests in total, it was a large party. She was definitely there. From around ten until quarter past one at least.” Kadeg hesitated after his report, as though he wanted to add something more. But he didn’t.
“Great. In theory, it’s possible she was involved in the shooting, purely from the point of view of timing, just about.” Rose raised her eyebrows slightly. “Question Cordier again about yesterday evening. Commissaire Dupin and I didn’t do that in our interview just now.”
“I’ll speak to her.” Kadeg loved those jobs.
“And what about the others? Quickly please!” Rose was impatient, which Dupin fully understood.
“Madame Laurent: no alibi for either of the two evenings.” Kadeg switched into his staccato reporting style. “Madame Cordier: we’ve just had her; the director of the Centre du Sel, Madame Bourgiot: dinner in the garden with her husband on Wednesday evening from eight thirty till midnight…”
“And yesterday too. Or so she says.”
“We’re checking that.” Kadeg yawned.
“We know about Monsieur Jaffrezic’s evening excursion yesterday.” Chadron took over again. The inspectors were well attuned to each other by now. “On Wednesday he left the salt marshes at quarter past eight with his colleagues and then went for a ‘bite to eat’ with two paludiers he’s friends with in Le Croisic. From half past ten he was at a Fest-Noz in Pornichet. Also with the two paludiers. Until after midnight. They both confirmed everything to us. Paul Daeron was still at a meeting in the early evening, again in Vannes, like the evening before, and we checked all of that. Then, as you know, he says he went out on his boat, which we have not found a witness to yet, and then went home. His wife and daughter confirmed that they ate together around half past nine. And they went to sleep around half past ten.”
“He doesn’t actually have an alibi for the relevant time. He could have got up again without anyone noticing.”
“Right,” Rose said drily. “I’ve spoken to the chemist again. They’ll have needed a lab, however makeshift; they had to buy bacterial solutions; they had to select the bacteria through laborious processes; set up new trials all the time; buy nutrient solutions for targeted reproduction of the microorganisms to have enough for a field test of this size; they needed to transport large quantities of algae here; they then had to look at the results and water samples in the laboratory. Last but not least, they’ll have needed money for all of this, as well as time. And if it wasn’t the work of one individual, they would have been communicating with each other. There must have been phone calls, texts, e-mails, meetings.”
“Without specific grounds for suspicion, we can’t request data on any of these people,” Kadeg added eagerly. “We haven’t found anything suspicious on Maxime Daeron yet. Nothing. And his wife couldn’t give us anything either.”
“I’ve put someone on that,” Rose continued, as though Kadeg hadn’t said anything, “contacting the laboratories that deal in specific microorganisms. No progress so far—I’ve just received the first preliminary report, but perhaps we’ll have some luck. But if they weren’t very unusual microorganisms, just the kind you can buy in any garden center, it won’t be much use.”
Dupin was feeling more and more restless. Maybe it was because of the unfamiliar situation. He had never in his whole police career thought things over with so many colleagues—he usually had to force himself just to go to regular meetings with his two inspectors during a case.
“There are twelve cultural clubs and associations in the White Land relating to the Guérande and salt. The most famous one is Les Amis de Guérande. It focuses on the cultural heritage of salt.” It was unclear how Riwal’s remarks were relevant, which was something that happened now and again. Dupin sighed. Riwal continued: “There are also professional societies. Special interest groups, economic associations, professional organizations, I think there are at least ten.”
Understandably, nobody reacted to what Riwal had said.
Dupin couldn’t take it anymore. He stood up.
Riwal went on, “Each of our suspects belongs to several of these associations at the same time. In varying combinations. In some cases they founded them themselves. Jaffrezic and Bourgiot, for example, founded a club for the ecological protection of the salt marshes, and they’re the presidents of it. It’s got over two hundred members at this stage. Last year Maxime Daeron was elected treasurer. The club is very active.”
Riwal had phrased this last sentence in the same way as the one before, thoughtfully but strangely nonchalant. This time all of the heads whipped round to look at him, which he didn’t even seem to notice. They all stared at him.
“I took a look at it when I was in the town hall. And here in the Centre,” he added almost apologetically.
“Maxime Daeron, Bourgiot, and Jaffrezic?”
Dupin was standing next to the table. It sounded nothing short of insane. But … this could be it. Precisely this. By chance. Riwal’s idea of researching the clubs and societies to see who was meeting whom was pure brilliance.
“A club like that could potentially be the perfect cover for the algae project.” Rose had grasped the significance immediately. “It’s hard to imagine a better smoke screen.”
Riwal leafed through the notebook lying open on the table in front of him, which was full to bursting. “There are any number of combinations of our six suspects. All six are active in the two large professional organizations. Apart from Jaffrezic, oddly. Laurent and Jaffrezic are members of the Society for the Promotion of the Marketing of Sel Breton. That’s probably the most powerful society. Just as an example: Maxime Daeron, Madame Laurent, and Madame Cordier are registered in a subgroup of the Fédération Saliculture Guérandaise with an emphasis on flora and fauna.”
Everyone looked at Riwal again, who spoke more firmly than he had before—with some pride too—but now looked confused at the disappointment
on everyone else’s faces.
“So it’s not watertight evidence then,” Kadeg noted triumphantly. “This way, it could be anyone anyway.”
That was true—but it was a possible lead. A theory of how everything might have begun. Where people had met and how.
“I want to have everyone’s current memberships collated in a clear list.” Dupin was still standing next to the table, his right hand on the back of his head.
“It’s already available.”
Riwal had done a huge amount of work. He slid the notebook across to Dupin. Rose stood up, positioning herself next to Dupin, and began to study the list with him.
It was painstakingly laid out, in tiny writing, six pages of it, all of the clubs and societies on the left and all of the suspects who were members of them on the right. In fact there was nearly every combination. It was enough to drive you mad.
“Do we know the aims of the clubs and societies—what each of them focuses on?” For Dupin at least, only a few of the societies’ names made it clear.
“In nearly every case, I know—”
Riwal was interrupted by Rose’s ringtone. But unlike before, she took just a small step to one side before she answered. “Bonj—”
Rose faltered in the middle of the word. And stayed motionless on the spot so that Dupin and the three inspectors instantly paused. She pressed the mobile to her ear and didn’t say a word. For what felt like forever. Then: “Of course.” She tried to speak calmly but she sounded very agitated.
Then she listened again.
“No—Monsieur Daeron, wait—we’re coming right now, where are … hello?—Hello, Monsieur Daeron? Hello?”
She waited, listening hard, for another nerve-shredding length of time. Then all of a sudden she took the phone away from her ear.
“Paul Daeron. He said he wants to talk to us immediately. And that we should come to him. That he wants to—” She hesitated for a moment. “—tell us the whole story.” Rose seemed extremely worried and wasn’t trying to hide it. “He was just about to say where he is right now—but then something happened. I could hear loud noises, like a struggle, he shouted something I couldn’t understand, then the call got cut off. It was from a private number.”
The Fleur de Sel Murders: A Brittany Mystery (Brittany Mystery Series) Page 25