The Killing Tide

by Jean-Luc Bannalec

  “I can’t say exactly, boss, maybe five in Finistère Sud.”

  “I want you to search for Gochat.”

  “I don’t think that makes much sense in this weather.”

  “True,” Dupin moaned.

  “Do you think it was her?”

  “It’s possible. One way or another she’s looking for something. Just as we are. I’m convinced of that. But go on, what about the others’ alibis?”

  “You saw Leblanc still on Sein at midday.” Riwal had obviously checked out the scientist. “After that he went on to Ouessant, also to take readings. I got through to him there. At two thirty-three, from the boat still. The institute has a tiny research station on Ouessant. Two staff. I spoke to one of the two, who confirmed that Leblanc had been there for a while but couldn’t say exactly for how long. Leblanc insisted it was about one forty-five. If that’s true then there wasn’t enough time for a clash with Morin. If not, and if he got to Ouessant half an hour later, then it would look very different. It also depends to a great extent how fast his boat can go.”

  “Hmm.” A rough grunt from Dupin. That was one of these dubious alibis of which they had heard far too many since yesterday. Taken literally, it meant nothing.

  “I think…”

  All of a sudden Dupin flinched. And stood motionless. Riwal nearly walked into him.

  In front of them they could see four strangely shaped granite rocks, right next to the path. And one of them had just moved. Slowly, calmly. But quite clearly.

  Dupin fixed his eyes on the spot.

  “A fat gray seal, tired from eating too much. They go out hunting and then come back here to eat comfortably.” Riwal sounded delighted.

  The seal had turned its head toward them. It seemed for a moment to be studying the little group of humans to decide if there was anything to indicate they weren’t dangerous. It carefully put its head back to the rocks. A perfect, chameleon-like blending in with the granite it was lying on. And it wasn’t just one seal, Dupin saw now, but more of them. Eight altogether. The others hadn’t found it necessary to raise their heads even slightly and look to their right. It looked rather cozy; they were all lying there stretched out beside one another, classic examples, about two meters long. Nobody seemed amazed, except for Dupin.

  “Regarding Vaillant,” Kadeg said, while Dupin remained somewhat impressed by the seals. “He was west of Ouessant when I heard him over the radio. They were out fishing for mackerel.”

  “Could he have been at the spot where it happened around one forty-five?”

  “Under the right circumstances, definitely. Just like Leblanc. It’s not out of the question.”

  Unbelievable. It went on and on.

  “He came to the Île de Sein to buy cola, chewing gum, chips, and beer, and then went out fishing? What did he do before visiting the supermarket?”

  They had left the seals behind them, though not before Dupin had turned around for a last look.

  “He said he’d been asleep a long while.”

  It was absurd.

  Kadeg’s phone went off. He took a few conspicuous steps on one side and picked up.

  “Inspector Kadeg?”

  He listened for some while.

  “Three of his big boats? Three of the deep-sea trawlers?”

  There came an answer, and then a follow-up question from Kadeg: “What about the coastal boats?”

  Once again Kadeg stood there listening for a while. Then he terminated the call.

  He came back to Dupin and Riwal with a meaningful expression on his face.

  “Three of Morin’s deep-sea trawlers, which were in the Douarnenez harbor, had left at the same time. They weren’t supposed to go out to sea until tomorrow.”

  Dupin ran his fingers through his hair. That was no coincidence either.

  “Where are his other big boats?” Dupin asked. He recalled six of them, if he remembered correctly.

  “Between Scotland and Ireland. Far away. Too far.”

  “He’ll have sent all his coastal fishermen out,” Riwal said grimly.

  “Without doubt,” Kadeg said.

  Dupin wasn’t in the least surprised. That was why Morin had needed to get his strength back. To launch a major operation.

  “The search for her still won’t be easy,” Riwal mumbled. “The sea is big. And the woman in question could have been on land long ago.”

  “Could we have Morin’s fleet followed?” Dupin asked.

  “Even if we wanted to, we don’t have enough boats.”

  “Keep going. What about Jumeau? Where has he holed up?”

  They had set off again. Now in a line the other way around: Kadeg, Riwal, Dupin, one on the heels of the other. They would soon have completed the entire circuit of the island.

  “I got to him first. To the north of Sein, where he was yesterday. He claimed to have spent the whole time in that region, which would have been about ten sea miles away.”

  “Of course.” That too had been vague. As was more or less in the nature of things, Jumeau too had been out at sea. To measure distances and times and make estimates on the sea they had to combine engine power, plus the strength of both waves and currents. All of which necessarily complicated the calculations and left them extremely elastic.

  “Frédéric Carrière, Morin’s bolincheur,” Kadeg began again. “He was just two sea miles from Ouessant at two fifteen. That’s not far from the area we’re talking about. He was seen from the other boat, a bolincheur that had nothing to do with Morin. Carrière himself said he had been a lot farther north. Almost outside national waters. That means he was lying, that he lied to me directly.”

  Maybe Morin’s fishermen really had played a central role in this drama.

  “Call him, Kadeg and—” Dupin cut himself short. He had stopped dead. As if he had been struck by lightning.

  “What was that you just said, Riwal?”

  The inspector turned round in confusion. “What did I say? In connection with Jumeau or Vaillant? The sea is big and—”

  “No, no. The thing about the parc measuring station. That the Parc Iroise has a measuring station out there”—Dupin waved out into the murky gray, just like Riwal had done—“on an island, in the south of Molène, you said, more or less close to where the business with Morin took place.”

  “Yes, the Île de Trielen. But…”

  “Wait a minute,” Dupin said. He had speedily produced his cell phone. He had already called that number today.

  Riwal and Kadeg stood clueless in front of him. It took a while.

  “Hello?”

  A cheery female voice. Full of spark.

  “Am I speaking with Monsieur Leblanc’s assistant?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Commissaire Dupin. I came by yesterday…”

  “I remember.”

  “Just one question. When Monsieur Leblanc does his Friday tour around the measuring stations, what route does he take?”

  “Always the same: Sein, Trielen, Ouessant, Béniguet, then Rostudel and the Crozon peninsula.”

  Dupin fell silent briefly.

  “Trielen, the island to the south of Molène?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Always the same route, in the same order?”

  “Only in extremely bad weather does he make a change. Trielen is the most difficult, what with the swell and the currents. In difficult conditions he skips the island and collects the data the following week.”

  “What about today?”

  “I think,” she began, then hesitated. “To be honest I don’t know. We’ve been waiting for a heavy storm since midday. But on the other hand the sea so far has remained calm. Should I ask him?”

  “No. Leave it for now. I’ll call him myself. Thank you.”

  Riwal and Kadeg had come closer and closer to the commissaire as he spoke on the phone. Kadeg was first to speak.

  “Leblanc told me he was going directly to Ouessant. He didn’t mention Trielen. He must have canc
eled that stop today.”

  “You think,” Riwal said sharply, “Leblanc was on Trielen, don’t you, boss? In which case he could well be our man.”

  Dupin was silent.

  “But even if he had been on Trielen and Morin had been waiting for him there, and that would fit perfectly…” Riwal paused. “How could we prove it? Somebody would have to have seen Leblanc. And that’s extremely unlikely, particularly in this weather. Out of the question, effectively.”

  Dupin remained silent.

  Unfortunately Riwal was right. It had felt like an unexpected inspiration—the sort of thing they desperately needed.

  “There has to be a way.” Dupin’s sentence sounded like a prayer.

  “I want to speak to Vaillant. He knows…”

  Dupin froze again. And a moment later he had his phone to his ear again. He called the same number once more.

  “Hello?”

  “There’s something else I need to know. The readings Monsieur Leblanc takes, and uploads onto his computer.” All of a sudden he was feverish; something else had just occurred to him. “You only see the values when they’re in the system, correct? When Leblanc gets back to the office. I mean that’s when he feeds them into the system, and not by wire beforehand?”

  “No, only then.”

  “And if he erased them beforehand, you would never see them.”

  “That’s correct.” He could hear justified confusion in the assistant’s voice. “I’ve already spoken on the phone with Monsieur Leblanc. There’s a couple more things I have to clear up with him before the weekend. And as you asked, he did leave Trielen out for now today, because he thought the storm would be well under way by now. But he’s going to pass by there now, on his way to the Île de Béniguet.”

  “I…”

  For seconds Dupin was incapable of saying any more because of the force with which the thought had shot through him. And this time it was a crystal-clear thought. One that illuminated everything. Dupin was sure of it. “Did you tell Monsieur Leblanc that I had asked about his route?”

  “Only in passing.”

  She could hardly have done otherwise.

  That was it. That was the solution.

  “I need Goulch. He has to pick us up immediately.”

  Riwal and Kadeg stared at the commissaire.

  “No time for explanations, Riwal, tell Goulch he needs to come here right now.”

  Dupin had left the path and walked over to the water. They needed to be quick. Quicker than him. Or else the game was lost.

  “Where should he pull in here?” Riwal already had his phone at his ear. He could hear the urgency in Dupin’s tone of voice.

  “He needs to get here immediately.”

  It was serious for Dupin. He kept on walking toward the sea.

  It was going to be tight. He needed not to destroy the evidence. It had to be there. Dupin had reached the water. He looked around. There was no sign of sand or gravel, just huge black rocks. Luckily it was high tide. Maybe Goulch would be able to make it some way or other after all. That water was dark gray, somber. There were thick mats of seaweed.

  A moment later Riwal and Kadeg were next to him.

  “Goulch is coming.”

  “Good.” Dupin was deep in thought.

  “Where are we going to?” Kadeg’s question was cautious, not pushy; even he seemed to feel that this wasn’t the moment to be outspoken. Dupin didn’t hear a word. He had begun to pace up and down, his head bowed.

  “The Bir will be here in a second,” Riwal said. He seemed to want to calm the commissaire.

  All of a sudden, Dupin came to a stop, deep determination on his face. The next minute he stormed off, straight into the sea. Kadeg and Riwal stood there, open-mouthed, without moving from the spot.

  Dupin rushed into the water up to his knees, then to his waist. Then he stopped, not feeling anything of the chill of the sea. He waited.

  “Boss, this wasn’t a good idea.” Riwal had finally got moving and rushed down to the water’s edge. Suddenly there was a loud noise—the twin engines of Goulch’s boat, coming from the right, even if it still couldn’t be seen in the pea-soup fog.

  “Here, we’re over here,” Dupin called as loudly as he could.

  “Got you, Commissaire.”

  Goulch, calm itself, as always. He was speaking through a megaphone, clear and easy to make out. It only took a moment for Dupin to see the shape of the Bir.

  “I’ll send out the tender, Commissaire, but I’m not coming much closer.”

  “That’ll take too long.”

  Dupin walked forward, briskly if a little more carefully than minutes before. It wasn’t easy to keep his balance, with the ground stony and covered in seaweed. The water was up to his chest. And now he could feel it. Sixteen degrees, Dupin guessed. Or fifteen. Or fourteen.

  “Watch out, boss! You’ll lose your footing!” Riwal’s voice betrayed the fact he could see catastrophe staring them in the face.

  Dupin stopped one last time. There were still ten meters to the boat. Then without taking a single step farther, he slid completely into the water.

  And swam.

  He swam up to the high stern. Goulch had been watching everything and run to the rear of the boat with two crew members.

  Riwal and Kadeg were now also wading into the water. Deeper and deeper until they began swimming. Faster toward the end; it was clear the commissaire wasn’t going to wait for them.

  Dupin had reached the boat, the steps of the flat stern. With Goulch’s help he was immediately on board. One of the others handed him a blanket, but Dupin turned it down.

  “To Trielen. As fast as possible,” Dupin said. His heart was hammering madly.

  “Got it,” Goulch said and vanished into the bridge.

  Riwal and Kadeg did the crawl the last few meters. They heaved themselves on board just as the engines roared into life.

  * * *

  “We’re here!”

  Dupin had joined Goulch on the bridge during the high-speed trip. His polo shirt, pants, shoes, and socks were saturated with seawater but he didn’t notice. He had strained to keep a lookout the whole way, despite how crazy it was. The murky air seemed to have become even more impenetrable.

  “There are two passages.” Goulch had a detailed map chart on his impressive monitor. “The measuring station is here at the narrow end. It looks as if you could get to the station in the same time from both north and south. We’re coming from the north.”

  Kadeg and Riwal had in the meantime pushed in to join Goulch and Dupin, which made it very crowded on the bridge.

  There was still nothing of the island to be seen: no rocks, no silhouettes.

  “How close can we get?”

  “Just a few meters, and that’s it. Even at high tide.”

  “Isn’t there a pier?”

  “No. You need a tender.”

  “Turn the engines off, Goulch.”

  As they couldn’t see anything, they had to work with their ears. But above all they had to hope they wouldn’t be too late. From one moment to the next everything fell silent.

  Totally silent. All that could be heard was the gentle slapping of the water as the boat slid through it.

  “Three possibilities,” Dupin said in a subdued voice. “He may already have gone again, so far that we can’t hear his boat anymore; he could be here now on the island but with his engines off, in which case he knows someone else has arrived; or he might still be on his way here and we’ll soon hear his boat.”

  Nobody said anything for a while.

  Dupin ran up to the stern. “We’ll go onshore. I want to get to the station.”

  “This time I’d advise taking the tender,” Goulch said.

  Suddenly they could make out shapes, dark low rocks in silhouette. Maybe twenty meters away. They really were next to the island.

  “It’ll be quick,” Goulch said. He pressed a big yellow button, and the two massive arms released the tender to the wa
ter.

  “Good.” With that modest comment, Dupin was already standing on the hard rubber of the tender. Kadeg and Riwal followed.

  “Take this with you.” Goulch handed the commissaire a walkie-talkie radio. “I’ll stay right here with the boat. When you reach land, the station will be about a hundred meters to the right. Directly on the water.”

  Dupin nodded.

  Goulch released the tender.

  Kadeg and Riwal had each grabbed a paddle, and pushed the boat off.

  It glided toward the rocks almost silently. Instinctively Dupin reached for his gun.

  In just a few meters they reached the island.

  Riwal kept an eye on the spot where they were to get out. Still not a single other sound to be heard. No seagulls here, no people. Nothing.

  Riwal was first to get out of the boat. “It’s fine here.”

  Dupin did the same, then Kadeg. The water was up to their hips.

  There was no doubt about one thing: if Leblanc was already on the island, he knew they were too, but not where exactly. He wouldn’t be able to see them either. Dupin waded to the shore.

  He climbed onto the dark rocks until he reached the stubby grass. He headed right, as Goulch had said, the inspectors two or three meters behind him.

  It was eerie. The thick pea soup, the absolute silence, as if nature, the island itself, and the sea were all holding their breath.

  Dupin moved slowly, his hand on his Sig Sauer.

  After a while the land went uphill.

  To the right, on the rocks by the sea, they could see concrete constructions, probably a form of defense for the measuring equipment. All of a sudden there was a mighty noise.

  Dupin had immediately identified it: the howling of a boat engine.

  He was there now.

  “It’s coming from the other side of the island.” Riwal had immediately shot off, Kadeg too. Even Dupin didn’t hesitate. The sound had died down a little but was still constant.

  They ran over grass and stone without seeing where they were going. Heading for the source of the noise. The island was larger than Dupin had thought.

  They reached the shore. And could see nothing here either at first.

  The boat had to be farther to the left. The rocks looked higher and steeper than on the other side. They needed to take care not to slip and fall. They could break their arms or legs.