Her lower tone of voice implied the conversation was at an end.
“The convoy is setting off, Monsieur le Commissaire. And I’m in the lead. I’ll be in touch.”
She had already hung up.
Dupin and Riwal had taken exactly the same route that they had followed an hour and a half earlier, along the waterside to the cholera cemetery. From above—a bird’s-eye view, like that of one of the many seagulls, for example—it would have looked amusing to see them walking up and down the little island, Dupin thought.
“What did Nolwenn say?”
Dupin passed on her news.
“I’ll deal with the search now.”
“Riwal?”
“Boss?”
Dupin didn’t quite know how to put it. He didn’t want to attribute too much weight to the matter.
“Nolwenn—and her aunt—are leading a convoy. They…” He was best to leave it.
“The ‘great vehicle convoy’ beginning in different places but primarily in Lannion, and they’re all heading for Quimper: cars, trucks, tractors, down the four-lane roads.” The “Brittany highway,” and all the main traffic arteries. “It’s going to hold up traffic for hours on end.”
Dupin was trying his hardest to banish the images that sprang up in his mind. A state-employed police staffer was, in her normal working hours, leading an illegal operation to create massive traffic hindrance, which the police would have no option but to act against. A drive to Quimper—it would have to be Quimper! The head office of the prefecture.
The wisest thing to do was not to have anything to do with it. His inspector seemed to see things the same way.
“See you later, boss.”
With that farewell, Riwal turned around.
Dupin kept going, glad to be on his own at last.
* * *
The commissaire found himself halfway between the cemetery and the lighthouse, on his right hand the pier, the only one outside the harbor area. A Zodiac with one of those colossal engines was moored at it. Riwal would have automatically recited the technical details: the cubic capacity, horsepower, length.
Probably Leblanc, here to take the readings.
Dupin wondered if it was time to start going on the offensive about the “find.” Mention the various possibilities—they didn’t have to use Morin’s name if they mentioned parts of a boat. The islanders would get the message anyhow when the police began searching all the buildings. They would make wild guesses, which would get expanded on. There was no way of keeping secret any such large-scale search operation. Sometimes a revelation could exert interesting pressure at a specific stage of a case. Get things going. They hadn’t even spoken about it, but Riwal would have to tell the officers what it was they were to search for.
It would, in any case, have an effect. The perpetrator would be scared, and ideally do something careless, overhasty. One could even specifically ask the populace for help and suggestions. Dupin had no scruples on things like that. It only mattered if it was wise or not. Whether it would help them reach their goal. There was always the possibility that something like that could make the killer extremely careful: to disappear. Or just lie low.
Dupin had left the asphalt path and climbed up the substantial hill of pebbles on the shore of the sickle-shaped bay directly to the pier. At the edge was a small, low building, not unlike the concrete shed in front of the harbor, on its roof a steel cage for technical equipment. The pier was longer than it looked from a distance, with an elaborate technical construction at the end. A sort of elongated cage which extended into the water. The apparatus for taking the readings, probably.
“Monsieur le Commissaire!” Leblanc had suddenly appeared from behind the shed and waved at Dupin. The commissaire moved toward him. “Has there been any progress with the investigation?” Leblanc asked.
“We know the story and the motive. We know what it’s all about—we just don’t have the murderer.”
“That relieves me enormously.” Leblanc lowered his gaze. “I still haven’t come to terms with it. Here on the island I’m perpetually waiting for Laetitia to turn up any minute in her boat.” Now he looked Dupin straight in the eyes. “I assume you want to keep the story to yourself? What happened here?”
“I’m not quite sure about that.”
Dupin hadn’t intended to answer like that. There was a pensive look on Leblanc’s face. It prompted him to ask more questions, but he let it go.
“I’ve just taken the readings for the past week. Do you want to take a look at the equipment on the pier? It’s quite small but brilliant. It gives everything the most advanced analysis requires.” He was back to being the enthusiastic researcher again.
“What’s in the low building?” Dupin asked.
“Technical stuff. It belongs to the measuring station. That’s where the rest of the equipment is: for measuring wind, precipitation, air pressure.”
“Nothing else?”
“A few bits and pieces to do with building works. And equipment. Things like that.”
“Any objections if I take a look?”
“Not at all. But honestly, there’s nothing very exciting to see.”
Dupin walked over to the building.
A steel door. A solitary window overlooking the sea. An aluminum table in the corner near the entrance, a chair next to it. A laptop, connected to a piece of apparatus made of steel with lots of buttons and lamps, hanging on the wall. Cables that went upward and through a hole in the wall to outside, presumably to the devices on the roof.
“From here I can take all the readings from the measuring equipment out at the end of the pier: pH values, oxygen levels, things like that.”
Dupin was only listening with one ear. The room was a lot more interesting to him.
“Laetitia Darot would obviously have access to this building, wouldn’t she?”
“Theoretically yes, of course. But I doubt she was ever here. I can’t think of any reason she would have had to come here. Once or twice she took the readings for me, in extended spells of bad weather. But only then.”
Dupin had begun to move slowly around the room. Four meters by four, he reckoned. There didn’t seem to be any electric light.
On two sides there were bits of aluminum that looked as if they belonged to the construction at the end of the pier. In one corner lay a formidable-looking anchor, several plastic canisters, probably for oil or gas, Dupin assumed, and in the middle of the room there was a ladder on the coarse concrete floor. Layers of dust everywhere. In the corner opposite the table lay an inflatable boat, small but professional-looking.
Leblanc had noted Dupin’s glance. “Sometimes I have to fix something in the station from the sea. In that case I take the little boat.”
Whatever the object they were looking for might be, it wasn’t here. Which meant: it wasn’t easy to hide.
“Is there … any other room, an annex or something?”
“No. Just this.”
It was clear from Leblanc that Dupin’s questions were increasingly puzzling him.
“I’d also like to take a look at the measuring station at the end of the pier.”
The find had lain for ages in the sea; it wouldn’t hurt it to be put back in the sea. A calm, secure place under the sea would generally be no bad place to hide something.
“Gladly. Once we would have needed whole laboratories to do what this can do. Come along!”
Leblanc left the shed. Dupin took a last long look around and followed him.
“Did Laetitia Darot have access to all the institute’s rooms on Île Tristan?”
“Yes, in principle. But apart from in the technical area I never saw her anywhere. Like I said, she didn’t even have her own office.”
They walked down the pier. They could hear distant voices; snatches of voices, more like. Dupin turned around. He saw four policemen in uniform heading toward the end of the island. The operation had begun.
Then something occurred to him.
He took his phone out. “Just one minute, Monsieur Leblanc. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
Dupin walked a few meters out onto the beach.
“Boss?” Riwal was speaking so softly he was almost impossible to hear.
“You absolutely have to take a look around the lighthouse. And the adjoining buildings with the power supply and the desalination works.”
“I’ll see to it. Four colleagues are on their way to the chapel.”
“I’ve just seen them, Riwal. They need to look into every room.”
“Meanwhile, Vaillant”—Riwal spoke even softer—“has left his boat with three men. I’m tailing him.”
“Where are you heading?”
“To the little supermarket.”
“The little supermarket?”
“Exactly.”
“What are they after there?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’m watching the checkout. I can see them clearly. They haven’t paid yet.”
It was bizarre. Not least because Dupin was imagining Riwal cowering somewhere behind a wall.
“Call me again if something happens.”
Dupin put his phone back in his pants pocket.
Leblanc had walked on to the end of the pier, and was waiting for him there.
“Are you looking for something in particular, Monsieur le Commissaire? Can I help you?”
Dupin had caught up with him. He walked to the farthest edge, where the frame met the sea.
It was incredible how clear the water was. In the sun it shone emerald green and turquoise blue. He could see every little stone, every mussel, every single little wave of sand. A swarm of green fish shot by, their bellies shining silver for a second, as if someone had exploded a splendid firework in the sea. Two jet-black crabs hurried past.
It didn’t take long to see there was nothing here.
Dupin turned away. “That’ll do, Monsieur Leblanc.”
“Do you know any more now?” Leblanc couldn’t hide his amazement.
“I need to go,” Dupin said, frowning. “Thank you for your help.”
“I hope you’ll soon be able to draw a line under this case. It’s a catastrophe. Totally.” He looked sadly into the distance. He looked altogether even more upset than the day before.
“Yes.”
“On the subject of the readings”—the topic caused Leblanc to brighten up—“the air pressure has fallen hugely over the past half hour. That suggests a storm. If you want to get back to the mainland in good time, you need to leave soon.”
Involuntarily, Dupin looked up and stared around earnestly in all directions.
The sky was every bit as blue, glorious, and innocent as before. Not even the tiniest hint of a problem. Not the slightest indication of a change in the weather, let alone a storm. Naturally Dupin, compared with a genuine Breton, was no expert in predicting the weather, but he was also no longer a beginner, considering he had been training for years. He knew the signs. And the ones he was seeing didn’t look like an upcoming storm. His gut feeling didn’t indicate a storm either.
* * *
The searches of private buildings on the island were finished for the moment. The police had looked into every room. Madame Coquil had initially refused to hand over the keys to the non-public rooms in the museum, and in the end only agreed under protest. She was also in charge of the keys to the church and the little lighthouse on Quai Nord.
There were a few buildings—such as the old, empty Bureau du Port—which Dupin hadn’t thought of, but Riwal had. Toward the end there were only a few left, and the police were acting one by one.
Without finding anything. No suspicious boat boards, no engine, no metal object in the right dimensions, and not a cross. Not one suspicious trace. Nothing unusual, strange, conspicuous. Nothing at all.
An operation without result.
It was discouraging; the negatives had piled up, it was extremely difficult to see beyond that and turn one’s eye wholly toward the positive. As far as Dupin was concerned, there was nothing to see.
On the way back from Leblanc’s measuring station, he had taken a look himself in a couple of buildings that had already been searched without anything being found. In the fire station, in the church. He had become nervous, more so than he had so far admitted to himself, and his nervousness had only got worse as the operation went on.
The nervousness had gradually become ill humor and petulance. Not a situation he hadn’t been in before today, it had to be said, only now it was worse.
The word that the police were after “something” had, as expected, spread around the island in the blink of an eye. It was even said they were expecting to find another corpse. Then again there was talk of a “treasure”—a gold staff encrusted with precious stones. As if it had been created by a magician. Or druids. Found on the bottom of the sea. Antoine Manet had also got in touch and kept Dupin updated with all the latest. Before long, Dupin had no illusions, there would be online headlines and eccentric radio broadcasts.
He had told the uniformed police not to let slip a word about what it was they were after. Not even to deny anything, just to stick to the formula: “no comment.” The rumors didn’t worry him at all.
The perpetrator probably knew by now—or soon would. And he would assume that they knew.
Riwal had news. He was waiting for the commissaire in Ar Men, the only hotel on the island. Where Riwal had spent the night. The ferry today had brought a particularly large number of day-trippers, who had made themselves comfortable in the bars and cafés next to the harbor. Dupin had every understanding of that, but unfortunately it meant the cafés were no longer right for discreet police interrogations.
Riwal too looked depressed. The élan had gone; he looked jaded. He had been on his feet since five in the morning. And almost certainly—just like yesterday—without anything to eat. It was certainly not without ulterior motive that Riwal had chosen the Ar Men, which was also a restaurant. Dupin’s stomach had begun to grumble noisily. Leblanc’s report about the enormous drop in the air pressure had affected his stomach in the form of a small but persistent queasy feeling. Eating would certainly help; an empty stomach was never good. There were still no clouds to see anywhere, only that the blue sky had got just a little whiter, a little milkier if you preferred. But really only just a little.
“You’re saying Vaillant and his men have come back to the boat from the little supermarket? With cola, chewing gum, chips, and beer?” Dupin shook his head unbelievingly.
Riwal had just reported in on his stalking.
“That’s the way it is. As if they were having a laugh at our expense.”
“And have they since set off from the dock?”
“Straightaway. They docked, went to the little supermarket, back to the boat, and set off again. Carrière meanwhile is no longer to be seen out at sea. Nor is Jumeau. He’ll probably have headed off toward the Chaussée des Pierres Noires.”
Dupin thought to himself. He ought to have Vaillant shadowed at sea also. But that wasn’t going to be easy. If they wanted to be inconspicuous they’d need to get hold of a fishing boat. But at the same time they ought to shadow all the others, all their “special candidates.” That would need a lot of fishing boats.
The sea was a difficult place for investigations. It made things more complicated than they already were.
Riwal interrupted Dupin’s fruitless reflections. “As you asked, I’ve spoken to my cousin again. According to his scientific opinion, a find of that nature—let’s just say a cross made of solid gold at the bottom of Douarnenez Bay—I’m quoting here, boss, even though you won’t like it,” he hesitated again a moment, “would unquestionably have to be seen in connection with Ys. There are no churches in Douarnenez, and none of the towns or villages around the bay have churches, monasteries, or any sort of place that could even rudimentarily be home to such a cross or similar archaeological find.” He was speaking faster all the time for fear Dupin might interrupt him.
“In any case there are not many gold crosses of this size in the whole of historically Christian France, he said. And none of them are missing. ‘It would have to be an improbable importance to an improbable place.’ Those are his words. There’s nothing else imaginable.”
Dupin hadn’t interrupted. He was too tired. Apart from anything it was he who had told Riwal to talk to his cousin. He should have known.
Dupin had hoped for something else. A realistic historical context, possibly including a cross. Something like: in the great cathedral of Quimper or Rennes there was a great golden cross up until some century or other, when it was stolen at some stage by the Normans, the Angles, or Saxons, and brought to Douarnenez on a ship that sank in a stormy night … something like that.
He said nothing.
“What do we do now, boss?”
“I want us to concentrate on Morin.”
He had spoken forcefully, but it sounded pathetic. He hadn’t got a clear attitude. It was enough to make him fly off the handle.
“No,” he corrected himself. “From now on we’ll focus on all the others as well.” It didn’t sound quite so hangdog. “The killer isn’t going to make things easy for us,” Dupin grumbled. “It’s going to be a clever hiding place. Nonetheless, we’ll extend the search systematically. To the mainland. We need to keep the teams at it.”
It would be a lot of effort. A lot of frustrating effort. Dupin let out a deep sigh. But obviously it did no good.
Riwal just offered a battle-weary, “Let’s get on with it.”
“But beforehand, Riwal, we’re going to eat.”
The inspector’s face immediately brightened. “The restaurant’s specialty is known throughout France. Ragoût de homard!” He had announced it like a fanfare. “You will be delighted, boss. The ragout is served in large crockery pots. Lobster finely cut up, partly removed from its shell, pink onions from Roscoff, celery, fennel seeds, smoked mussels all seared in groundnut oil, rinsed with cider eau de vie, with two or three glasses of very good white wine added.” It certainly sounded like poetry. “Then the incomparable potatoes amandine, a dash of cream, Espelette peppers, sea salt and lots of salted butter, then let it sit and braise, braise, braise.”
The Killing Tide Page 29