“When was she last here?”
“She brought us some just two weeks ago. We were having a big party. A birthday party. With a special menu.”
“Do you know Monsieur Morin, madame? I mean personally.” They were, after all, virtually neighbors.
The owner of the Ty Mad took a chair and sat back, all quite casually.
“There are people who unbalance the world. People who damage it, poison it.” She was thinking it aloud to herself, calmly. “I’ve never consciously had anything to do with him. I’ve always avoided him.”
Dupin downed his café in a few small sips. It was strong and gave off an irresistible aroma.
“The Morin family has tyrannized the bay for generations. The whole region. They’re domineering types, always have been. Morin’s father was a judge, renowned for his toughness. The Île Tristan belonged to them once upon a time. The mid-twentieth century. Before it was taken by a poet, and then bought by the state. Do you know the island?”
“Just the bit in front of the pier, the building belonging to the Parc Iroise.”
“The island has two faces. If you see it in beautiful sunshine like today, you’re looking at the bright side. That’s the aura projected by the lovers in their graves,” the Ty Mad’s owner told him without the slightest hint of the dramatic. “But there is another side too. In the sixteenth century the island was a bastion of a gory pirate and warlord.” That had to be the bogeyman Nolwenn told him about now and again. “Guy Éder de La Fontenelle, ‘the Wolf.’” She held a long pause but it didn’t seem to be for effect. “The Wolf turned a small band of thieves and thugs into a garrison of nearly a thousand warlike men, with whom he terrorized the region under the guise of religious war. They massacred thousands of people, peaceful farmers, fishermen, everyday town and country dwellers, and laid waste to whole strips of land. They raged like storms of destruction; in Douarnenez the Wolf forced the citizens to tear down their own houses to give him the stone to build his fortress on the island, then he had them executed.” She pushed strands of hair from her face. “He built a huge fortune from his robberies, primarily gold. He was obsessed with gold and piled it up in hidden caves across the island, where it still lies today. Somewhere out in the western cliffs, near the half-collapsed pier where the grottos are, that’s the entrance. Before long there was so much gold that he had to hide it in other caves the length of the bay.” She gave Dupin an inscrutable look. “People here remember everything. They make no distinction between yesterday and today.”
Dupin was aware of that. It was a basic trait of Brittany and its people. That was the way things were, and you had to know that.
He wiped a few beads of sweat from his forehead. The heat had become unbearable.
“There’s a tiny place beyond Tréboul where the locals still talk about the landing of Viking ships as if it were just something that happened last week. They claim they can tell you the exact site of the Viking Thingstead, their parliament. A few years ago a team of archaeologists searched the area and indeed found the Thingstead. There were lots of remains, and exactly on the site they had indicated. People pass these things on from one generation to the next; a thousand years is nothing, just a chain of twenty or thirty human lives. It’s the same with the Wolf. There are locals who can tell you everything about him, what routes he used to get to the island, who his lovers were. Everything.”
Dupin believed every word.
“And these treasures”—the question had fallen off his tongue, and now she seemed somewhat unfriendly toward him—“do people look for the treasure?”
“People are always looking for it,” she said, sounding disdainful. “People will do anything to get rich. They would commit any murder.”
It was tragic but true.
“From time to time this darkness visits the island. But believe me, it doesn’t turn off the island’s light.”
The sentence had barely faded away when Dupin’s cell phone rang.
“I’m sorry, madame, I have to take this.”
“Please, go ahead.”
Dupin pulled the phone out of his jacket pocket.
An unfamiliar number.
“Dupin. Who is this?”
“Antoine Manet here. Jumeau was just here. He admitted to me that he had a relationship, a relationship with both women. Although loosely. One after another, sort of. Maybe not quite after one another. I can’t be certain.”
Dupin’s attention had already been grabbed by the first sentence. He had to pull himself together not to speak too loudly.
“With both? A relationship with both women? For how long?”
“If I understand correctly, that with Céline had already ended, but in March they … ‘saw’ each other again. By then he had already started up with Laetitia Darot. But it was very relaxed. He only met up with her three times, so he said.”
The impact of this information was immense.
“That makes Jumeau our most prominent suspect.”
“I know.” There was clear resignation in Manet’s words. “I told him I would inform you. And that you yourself would want to speak to him. He accepted that with a shrug of his shoulder. On both counts.”
“Why had he not already told my inspector?”
“He needed time to think if he ought to tell anybody at all.”
“Did he mention any quarrels, or allegations? Jealousy?”
“He and Céline split up amiably, and remained friends as they had been before. And Darot knew all about it. Even the subsequent time. There hadn’t been any problems. For any of them, so he said.”
Sort of a ménage à trois. It was the first time there had been anything that complicated.
“Was he nervous when he spoke to you?”
“Jumeau’s never nervous.”
“Tell him a police boat will come to collect him.”
“I will.”
“He’s to stay at home. I’ll let my inspector know.”
“Fine.”
Antoine Manet hung up faster than Dupin.
The hotel owner had sat there fascinated throughout the phone call, without letting him know she had been listening to the whole conversation.
She put her head to one side and looked Dupin straight in the eye. “I’m holding you up, you need to get on. I do too. I have to pick up my two daughters from the airport, they’re staying all summer, two months.” She beamed warmly; the dark stories she had just been relating now seemed unimaginably distant. “The season is starting, my daughters will help me, along with my best friend. Come for dinner next time. You’ll enjoy it.”
Dupin had already spotted the dining room, a cast-iron annex in Art Deco style. It would be magnificent sitting in there, staring out at the blue of the Atlantic through the greenery of the garden. Claire would love it.
“I’ll do that.”
The Ty Mad’s owner stood up, turned around, and a moment later was gone. Dupin hadn’t heard her light feet on the gravel.
He sat there a while longer.
Then he called Riwal’s number.
“Boss?”
“Fetch Jumeau in one of the speedboats.” Dupin told him about Manet’s call. “I want to see him. Make it…” Dupin thought for a minute, “… at the Ty Mad in Tréboul.” Why not? A quieter place would be hard to find. “I’ve spotted a little jetty, not far from the Chapelle Saint-Jean. You can dock there.”
Apart from that, it would save wasting time driving.
“Are you in the Ty Mad now, boss?”
“I’m on the way to see Morin.”
“Aha. Apart from that…” Riwal dithered a bit and then added, “Apart from that, all’s well with you?”
It took a minute for Dupin to understand. “I’m fine. In the best of form. And I think it was actually just four graves I saw that first time. I was just a bit tired. There’s not the slightest reason to worry.”
He was going to have to ditch this idea once and for all.
“Okay, boss.” Riwal s
ounded far from convinced.
* * *
On the way to Morin’s, Dupin still worried over the spectacular news of Jumeau’s multiple affairs. That, and the growing barrage of events, and his interviews. Dupin wasn’t making any assumptions. He was in the midst of the confusing whirl of events, and confused by them himself. His thoughts were bouncing endlessly from one thing to another. What he needed more than anything else was some distance. But obviously this stroll was much too short even to get a bit of distance. He was outside Morin’s house in the wink of an eye.
A belle époque villa, visible from afar. A relic of the glittering era of the aristocracy. Nothing swanky. Rather discreet nobility. An elegant narrow house built of interlaced L-shaped red stone, the obligatory steep roof in natural slate, unostentatiously laid. Ornamental dark brown brickwork around the numerous windows, on the first floor a balcony full of ornaments from which there had to be a superb view of the bay. The most notable thing was a weathered rosebush in a winter garden built of elaborate woodwork. In front of the balcony was a single tall palm tree, and apart from that a few ancient, overgrown pines on a deep green lawn. Everything looked well cared for, none of it overly extravagant.
Dupin had to walk around the extensive grounds enclosed by a wall and with a cast-metal gate on the side away from the sea. A black Volvo SUV stood in the entrance. There was no name on the bell, one of those old-fashioned black buttons on a convex gleaming steel plate.
Dupin pushed the button. Once. Then once again, quickly one after the other.
It didn’t take long for the gate to open. Almost immediately a man appeared through the heavy wooden door of the house.
Dupin waited for him to speak first.
“How are your investigations going, Commissaire? Have you brought anything new to light?”
That same tone of voice that Dupin already knew from the phone: paternal, considerate, but pressing at the same time. Once again Morin didn’t waste time with pleasantries but cut straight to the chase.
“Tell me what I can do to help you. You know it’s a matter of deep concern to me.”
“You could help me by telling the truth.”
Morin had come a few paces toward Dupin, but now that Dupin had reached him, he nodded briefly, turned about-face, and headed back toward the door of his villa.
He cut a robust, stocky, burly figure, a singularly strong neck sticking out of a white shirt with vertical beige stripes, dark cloth pants, and black suspenders. Black hair, two bushy eyebrows, and pushed up onto his hair a pair of dark sunglasses which, like everything else he was wearing, looked as if they had cost no more than a few euros. The fine features of his face were a complete contrast to his otherwise coarse appearance.
“You must know that I have more than a few contacts, not unimportant ones. I know what levers need to be pulled and where in order to get information or anything else. I know the ways and means. We should be working together, Commissaire.”
The way Morin pronounced those sentences was supposed to appear not so much a threat as an offer of cooperation.
“Somebody warned you about the control operation today, monsieur. Your boats had been informed.” Dupin had spoken without any hint of implication; calmly, almost deliberately.
Morin showed not the slightest reaction. Rather he held the door open for Dupin and led him down a long hallway into a bright, spacious living room, decorated—or so it seemed—in the style of the same era as the building. Exquisite furniture, a glossily polished dark brown table with curved legs, modest but ornately decorated high-backed chairs. There was the smell of beeswax, dust, and mothballs, an idiosyncratic scent that Dupin recognized from long ago, from the grandiose house of his Parisian grandparents, who ended up only using the lowest floors. Morin was unlikely to spend much time here. Even now it seemed they were alone in the house.
Morin steered them to two deep armchairs directly in front of a window with a superb view: the deep blue of the sea with a bright sparkling surface. He sat down and waited for Dupin to do likewise.
“It’s a joke, the effort, the expense—childishness.”
There was no malice in what he said. He had made the statements simply facts. That it was taken for granted he had known about the operation. It meant nothing to him.
“I want to know who killed Laetitia Darot.”
For the first time there was a hardness evident in Morin’s expression.
“She could have been a witness to your numerous illegal activities in the parc. You wanted to get rid of her. Perhaps she had also got together with Céline Kerkrom to systematically monitor you and your boats.”
“I’m not going to answer that, Commissaire.”
“Eventually, Monsieur Morin, eventually, we’ll find out everything. Nothing will be left in the dark. I can assure you of that.”
Dupin had made a point of leaning back in his armchair as he said that, not letting his eyes leave Morin for a second. His face showed nothing more than a calm aplomb.
“We know…” Dupin let a few seconds pass; he obviously had to try it once more: “We know that she was your daughter.”
This time too, Morin showed not the slightest trace of reaction.
“I’ve heard that the two women were friends. And that they were working on a research project together. Other fisherfolk were involved too. I know them.”
Morin had his contacts, obviously. That was no surprise. Dupin would be damned if he’d engage him on the topic.
“Your trawlers’ dragnets and drift nets kill hundreds, thousands of the animals your daughter dedicated her life to. The animals she fought to protect.”
Morin’s eyes had drifted over to the window. He was silent.
“We know about the bream you let your men catch despite the strong regulations, the large numbers you throw back, the ormeaux. We also know your boats fish for red lobster, even though they weren’t caught with any today. That you use forbidden nets and fishing methods on a large scale. We know about all of it.”
There was no point in going through it all in detail, and in any case it was probably only a small part of what went on, but Dupin felt the need to do it.
“As I said, laughable. But that’s not the issue, Commissaire. I’ve been listening. You’re a reasonable man, a clever man. At least I hope so. I hope so very much.”
He was still staring into the distance.
“Where were you yesterday evening, Monsieur Morin? Early yesterday evening.”
“Is this really necessary?”
“It is.”
Morin groaned. “Around seven thirty P.M. I was at home. In Morgat. My wife and I had eaten, we chatted, watched television, and about ten thirty P.M. we went to bed. I had a meeting with my fishermen this morning at ten.”
Calmly Dupin fumbled his red Clairefontaine out of his pocket and opened it to the page with his list of persons.
“With Frédéric Carrière, I believe. Where did you meet?”
Morin remained unimpressed. “Here, in Douarnenez, by the harbor.”
It would have been no problem for Morin to have been in the auction halls yesterday evening and on the Île de Sein this morning. It was a trivial thing, but that was how it was. And the more complicated and tricky a case was, the more important it was to know the simple things. The banal facts.
“In other words, you have no alibi of any kind, Monsieur Morin?”
“Perhaps we shouldn’t talk about me, but about what the two dead women had to do with one another, hmm?” Morin’s forehead had developed deep creases. “They were both seen together at the entrance to Douarnenez Bay, on Laetitia Darot’s boat. And also on Céline Kerkrom’s.”
“We know that.” Dupin had immediately reacted. It wasn’t true. They hadn’t known that. It was an interesting piece of news, but it could probably be explained by the project with the specially equipped nets.
“Why were they together on one boat? What were they doing?” Morin was speaking quietly and not necessarily
directed at the commissaire.
“Perhaps testing the special nets which give off a signal; a real thorn in your side, I imagine. It must cause you a lot of expense.”
“I’ve already checked out all the fisherfolk involved in the project. There’s nothing in that. You can save your time, Commissaire.”
Morin kept going. And it wasn’t Dupin’s idea. He was doing it of his own will.
“Madame Gochat,” he continued calmly, “was having Céline Kerkrom watched. Here again we have to ask ‘why?’ And the boat of that hippie-pirate Vaillant has been seen a few times not far from Laetitia Darot’s boat. The devil knows what he had to do in the entrance to Douarnenez Bay.”
It was uncanny. And depressing. Yet again Dupin would have loved to have known how Morin knew all this—and above all, if he knew more. He didn’t ask.
“And he was on Sein last night, of all places.” Morin gave a grim look.
Dupin didn’t react, even though he found it difficult.
“So far you’ve always gotten away with things. But nobody has that much luck forever.”
A curiously calm smile played around Morin’s lips. He tried to catch Dupin’s eye. Then he leaned back in his armchair. Relaxed. Master of the situation.
“Young people don’t understand the big world yet. They are necessarily naïve. I was too at that age. The world is complicated. Life is complicated. They think it is simple.”
He wasn’t impressing Dupin at all.
“Complexity is one of the most frequent excuses, especially for oneself,” the commissaire replied.
“You should accept my help, Commissaire. We should exchange information and work together.”
“You’re one of the suspects, Monsieur Morin. And high up the list.” Dupin’s voice was surly.
It wasn’t a problem for Morin to put the gentle smile back on his face. “Commissaire, our world has rules of its own. Apparently not everybody adheres to them.” Morin got up slowly. “But I’ll deal with that, I promise you. And if not with you, then on my own.”
The Killing Tide Page 15