Dupin didn’t like the north coast very much. It rained all the time. The weather was considerably worse than on the south coast, where you often had high pressure areas coming in from the Azores. Like a good ‘southerner’, Nolwenn recited the numbers for him on a regular basis: 2,200 hours of sunshine per year in southern Finistère versus just 1,500 in the north. On top of that, the coast was rugged and stony for the most part and even where there were sandy beaches these tended to be narrow. And low tide revealed kilometres of grey-brown rocky ground covered in seaweed so that the beaches turned into ludicrously narrow strips of sand marooned in gigantic wastelands of seaweed. It was impossible to get to the sea, impossible to go swimming. Carantec was one of the exceptions in the north – it had a marvellous beach, even at low tide, dozens of islets just off a wide, placid bay. The whole village had atmosphere, it was authentic. There was an old town, a lovely little section of the headland with narrow, winding alleyways which somehow all led to the sea, even if people sometimes wondered how that could be possible. The Saurés’ house lay in the centre of the little village, near the little harbour and two or three wonderfully unpretentious restaurants (Dupin had fond memories of the entrecôte in one of them). They parked on the main square and the house was a stone’s throw from there. The storm still hadn’t died down and it was raining, just as it had been for the whole journey, nowhere had been spared. Dupin’s clothes were still damp. He was well aware he didn’t look like your average commissaire at the best of times, but he looked the part less so than usual right now.
He rang the doorbell twice, quickly and firmly. A short, thin man opened the door, mischievous, intelligent eyes, thick, unkempt hair, a large faded blue shirt, jeans.
‘Bonjour. Monsieur Sauré?’
Sauré’s tense face spoke volumes. ‘And to whom do I owe the pleasure?’
‘Commissaire Georges Dupin, Commissariat de Police, Concarneau. And this is Professor Cassel, from Brest.’
Sauré’s demeanour became more conciliatory, if only a little bit.
‘Ah yes, the Commissaire. You spoke to my wife on the phone. Weren’t you going to call me? My wife said you were going to call half an hour ago.’
Dupin hadn’t given a moment’s thought to how he would explain that he was suddenly standing at the door without warning and hadn’t phoned as arranged, so he just glossed over it. ‘We have some important questions and your knowledge could really help. As we understand it, you spoke to Pierre-Louis Pennec on the phone on Tuesday. I’m sure you’ve heard about his murder.’
‘Yes, it’s terrible. I read about it in the paper. Please do come in, we can continue our discussion inside.’ Monsieur Sauré stepped aside, let Madame Cassel and Dupin in, and quietly shut the door.
‘It’s along here. We’ll go into the sitting room.’
The house was much bigger than it looked from the outside and very tastefully and expensively furnished. Modern, but not clinical. Old and new confidently combined, everything in the colours of Brittany, the dark blue, the light green, the radiant white – the Atlantic colours. Cosy.
‘You must excuse me for not welcoming you more politely. I wasn’t expecting your visit and as I said, my wife told me you would be getting in touch by phone. She’s doing the shopping at the big Leclerc, we’re having guests tonight. But I could always offer you something – would you like a coffee, a glass of water?’
‘I would love a coffee, thank you.’ Madame Cassel had answered before Dupin could react. He would have preferred to get right down to business.
‘And you, Monsieur le Commissaire?’
‘The same for me. Thanks very much.’ He might as well have a coffee now; he hadn’t had one for hours anyway.
‘Do sit down, I’ll be right back.’ Sauré pointed to the low sofa and the two matching armchairs, everything arranged to face the incredibly large windows that framed a view that was breathtaking, even in this weather.
Madame Cassel had chosen one armchair, Dupin the other. They were sitting far apart.
‘It’s spectacular. I would never have thought the sea was so close.’ Dupin gazed into the distance, to the black horizon, almost invisible now. They sat in silence, staring out of the window.
Sauré came back with a pretty little wooden tray.
‘Madame Cassel is a professor at the University of Brest, an art historian. Gauguin is one of her specialities, she –’
‘Oh, but I know who Madame Cassel is, Monsieur le Commissaire.’ Sauré practically sounded offended. He turned to Madame Cassel.
‘I am of course familiar with some of your publications, Madame Cassel. Excellent. You are very well regarded in Paris. It’s a great pleasure to be able to make your acquaintance finally.’
‘The pleasure is all mine, Monsieur Sauré.’
Sauré had sat down exactly in the middle of the sofa, so that he was equidistant from Dupin and Madame Cassel.
Dupin decided to be direct. ‘What did you think when you heard about the existence of a second version of the Vision?’
He spoke very calmly. Marie Morgane Cassel’s head still whipped around in his direction. She looked at him in astonishment. Charles Sauré stared at Dupin, his expression unchanged, and answered in a relaxed, clear voice.
‘You know about the painting… Of course you know about the painting. Yes, it’s stupendous; I can’t believe this has happened. A second Vision.’
Now Madame Cassel’s head whipped around to Sauré. She looked absolutely flabbergasted. ‘There’s a second version of Vision after the Sermon?’
‘Yes.’
‘A second painting? A large Gauguin that nobody has known about until now?’ You could see the goosebumps on her skin.
‘I saw it. I don’t mind telling you that in my opinion, it is even more wonderful than the painting we know about. Grittier, bolder, more radical. The orange is like one huge block. It’s incredible. Everything that Gauguin wanted, everything that he was capable of – it’s all there. The struggle is at once more clearly a vision and more realistically an actual event, just like the nuns who are standing there watching.’
It took a moment for Dupin to grasp what Sauré had just said. ‘You did what? You saw the painting yourself?’
‘Yes, I’ve seen it. I was there. On Wednesday. Pierre-Louis Pennec and I met in the hotel that afternoon.’
‘You’ve actually seen the painting?’
‘I stood in front of it for half an hour. It’s hanging in the restaurant, right behind the door. It’s hard to get your head around it, a genuine Gauguin, a completely unknown painting –’
‘And you’re sure that it’s real? That it’s really by Gauguin?’
‘I’m confident it is. Of course it’s going to have to undergo a string of scientific tests, but in my view that will just be a formality. There’s no doubt in my mind that the painting is genuine.’
‘The painting that you saw is definitively not a copy?’
‘A copy? What do you mean? Where did you get that idea?’
‘I mean the painting is not the work of an artist painting in Gauguin’s style? Like all those imitators?’
‘No, absolutely not.’
‘How can you be so sure of it?’
‘Monsieur Sauré is a luminary. There’s nobody in the whole world better qualified to judge, Monsieur le Commissaire.’
Sauré couldn’t hide a flattered smile. ‘Thank you very much, Madame.’
Dupin had decided not to mention anything about the copy that was hanging in the restaurant right now. Madame Cassel seemed to have caught onto this.
‘Why did Pierre-Louis Pennec call and ask you to come? What did he want? Could you talk us through what happened, from the very beginning?’
Sauré leaned back. ‘Of course. Pierre-Louis Pennec called me for the first time on Tuesday morning. Around half past eight or so. He asked whether he could have a confidential conversation with me, it was about a rather important issue. That’s how he put it. Absolute confi
dentiality was very important to him. I was on the way to a meeting so I asked him to call me back late morning. And he did.’
‘So he called you back, rather than vice versa?’
‘Yes. Late morning. He came to the point very quickly: that his father had left him a Gauguin, one which art historians had known nothing about up till now, that he had kept it for decades, but that he wanted to leave it to the collection at the Musée d’Orsay. As a gift.’
Dupin sat up straight. ‘He wanted to leave the painting to the museum? Just donate it?’
‘Yes. That’s what he wanted.’
‘But the painting was immensely valuable. We’re talking thirty, forty million euro.’
‘Indeed.’ Sauré was completely calm.
‘How did you react?’
‘At first I wasn’t sure what to make of the whole thing. It sounded fantastical of course, but then again it was too fantastical to be made up. Why would someone make up a story like that? Worst case scenario, I said to myself, someone just wants a bit of attention. Monsieur Pennec wanted to meet as soon as possible.’
‘Did he say why this had to happen so quickly?’
‘No. He was actually rather formal, which I found agreeable, and I thought it inappropriate to ask him personal questions. We have dealings with a lot of very strong-willed people in the art world. And a straightforward donation to the museum is fairly normal.’
‘But surely the value of this donation is not normal. Surely the museum doesn’t get a donation like that every day.’
‘Monsieur Honoré must have been dumbfounded,’ Madame Cassel chimed in.
Charles Sauré looked a little disapprovingly at her. Turning back to Dupin, he added: ‘The president of the museum. One of the most renowned and influential figures in the art world. I haven’t spoken to Monsieur Honoré yet, I haven’t found the right moment. I didn’t want to jump the gun; that would have been a reckless thing to do. I thought I should take a look at the painting first, make sure that this really was a genuine Gauguin. And there was so much to discuss first, the donation, the timing, the conditions. Everything.’
‘So you agreed to meet the next day then?’
‘My wife and I had decided to come here for the weekend anyway and were considering staying for a few more days. Pont-Aven isn’t directly on our way, but it’s not too far. It suited us quite nicely.’
‘And so you met in the hotel itself?’
‘Yes. My wife walked around Pont-Aven for an hour, and I went into the hotel. He was already waiting for me downstairs at reception. He had asked me to come between three and five so we would have some peace and quiet in the restaurant. He came straight to the point in the meeting too. He had already made an appointment with his notary to include the donation in his will. He wanted to hand over the painting the following week. In Pont-Aven, he didn’t want to go to Paris. He had already written a short text for the plaque next to the painting, telling the history of the painting and also the history of the hotel, his father, and of course the great Marie-Jeanne Pennec.’
‘He wanted to make the history of the painting public?’
‘Absolutely. In a humble way. He didn’t want any fuss at the handover, no press release, no official unveiling, nothing like that. Just the little plaque. I told him you can’t just go along one morning and hang a painting like that in a museum like ours without any explanation. The existence of this painting is a miracle, and everyone would ask where on earth it had come from, the academics, the press, the public. Everyone. He wanted to reflect on these things with me one more time.’
Dupin had made a few notes in his Clairefontaine. Sauré looked rather appalled by the sloppy-looking notebook. Dupin simply carried on. ‘Did he tell you the history of the painting?’
‘Some of it. He said his grandmother, Marie-Jeanne, had got it from Gauguin himself. He gave it to her during his last visit in 1894 to thank her for all she’d done for him. Gauguin had always stayed at her hotel, never at Mademoiselle Julia’s. But above all, Pennec said, it was to thank her for looking after him for nearly four months after the fight in Concarneau, when someone seriously insulted his young Javanese girlfriend. He was quite badly injured at the time, but Marie-Jeanne nursed him with love and devotion, day after day, until he recovered. It’s been hanging in that spot in the restaurant ever since… It’s unbelievable when you think about it. Amazing.’
‘You were very close to the truth, Monsieur le Commissaire.’
Marie Morgane Cassel looked very pensive as she spoke. She gazed wide-eyed at Dupin, who couldn’t suppress a quick smile.
‘Did it never occur to you, Monsieur Sauré, that all of this might be extremely relevant to the police investigation… I mean when you later heard that Pierre-Louis Pennec had been murdered?’
Charles Sauré looked at Dupin in genuine astonishment. ‘I’m accustomed to working with the utmost discretion. Monsieur Pennec had asked me to remain utterly discreet at all times. And that’s not unusual for the art world. The majority of things in our world are, how should I put it, very private. Of course I was irritated when I heard what had happened. But even then I felt the most appropriate thing would be to maintain confidentiality. It’s our most important asset. Perhaps the heirs of the painting will appreciate this discretion. It’s an entirely private matter, owning a painting like that with that kind of value, as is the decision to donate. We have a strict code.’
‘But –’ Dupin broke off. It made no sense. It was clear that Charles Sauré didn’t find any of this at all strange, either at the time or now. Neither the fact that he had seen Pierre-Louis Pennec just two days before his murder, nor that he had learned of the existence of a painting worth forty million euro, which – it didn’t require much imagination – could quite clearly have been a motive for the murder he heard about later.
‘When was the handover due to take place?’
‘We were planning to arrange a time over the phone. But as he was walking me out, he was definitely talking about the beginning of next week. He wanted to get it sorted quickly.’
‘I take it Monsieur Pennec didn’t tell you the reasons for his donation?’
‘No.’
‘And that he didn’t tell you anything else that could be significant – or that seems significant to you now after his murder?’
‘It was all about the painting and the plan to donate it. The procedure. I didn’t expect an explanation from him anyway, or a story. I didn’t ask him any questions at all. It wasn’t my place.’
‘I understand. And nothing about Pierre-Louis Pennec struck you in any way? He wasn’t overly anxious… did anything cross your mind after the meeting?’
‘No. The only thing that was clear was that he didn’t want to waste any time. But he didn’t seem rushed or hasty, just determined.’
Dupin’s enthusiasm had vanished. Not that this was all that rare for him, even in the most important interviews and interrogations. But he knew what he wanted to know now.
‘Thank you very much, Monsieur Sauré. You have been extremely helpful. We need to be getting back now, I’m needed in Pont-Aven.’
Charles Sauré looked bewildered at this abrupt end to the conversation. ‘I… yes, well I don’t have anything else to tell you. They weren’t long telephone calls and it wasn’t a long meeting.’
‘Thanks very much… thanks again.’ Dupin stood up. Marie Morgane Cassel seemed just as surprised by the sudden end to the conversation as Sauré did. She jumped up too, somewhat embarrassed.
‘There’s something I’d like to know myself, Monsieur le Commissaire.’
‘Of course.’
‘Who will inherit the painting? I mean, who owns it after the… the death of Monsieur Pennec? I read something about a son in the paper.’
Dupin saw absolutely no need to inform Monsieur Sauré of the events of that morning. ‘We’ll see, Monsieur Sauré, I don’t want to comment on that right now.’
‘I assume that the heirs will conti
nue with the donation, it was the owner’s greatest wish after all… it’s only right… a painting like that should belong to the whole world.’
‘I can’t comment on that.’
‘Surely he managed to write his wishes about the donation into his will in time? He seemed to be treating it as very urgent.’
That was no doubt about it. Dupin understood what was going on here. ‘I’ll be in touch if you can be of assistance to us again.’
It took Sauré a while to respond. ‘Yes, please do. That would be great. You can reach me here till the end of the week. We’re not planning to head back until Saturday.’
Sauré walked them to the door and bade them a very formal farewell.
At least it had stopped raining, even though the sky still hung low, a dark grey. Dupin needed to go for a little walk, but he wanted to get back to Pont-Aven as quickly as possible.
‘Shall we walk once round the block? Maybe we should walk back to the car a different way.’
‘Good plan.’
The professor still seemed a little stunned.
They turned right onto a little path that ran past Sauré’s house. They could still catch glimpses of the house through the thick, metre-high rhododendron bushes as they walked down towards the sea. They didn’t speak until they’d reached the cliffs.
Death in Pont-Aven Page 16
