The Fleur de Sel Murders_A Brittany Mystery

by Jean-Luc Bannalec

  The boat was on its way to the quay in Port du Lério; they’d be there any moment. Dupin was eager to find out what it was Daeron wanted to share—apparently only with him—and he was also glad to be on his own for a little while. The third exquisite caramel sweet was in his mouth. Magnificent summer villas from the nineteenth century were visible in the equally magnificent woods—the Bois d’Amour—that began right by the quay, with discreet paths leading into the Wood of Love. Stone pines, tall pines, holm oaks. Dupin saw a bustling fleet of boats in one thick row along the quay, big sailing boats, small sailing boats, motorboats of all lengths, canoes in garish colors, the swift Zodiacs. Every one of them rocking ever so gently. The gulf was a sea of boats and Dupin was enjoying the view. A cobalt blue with hundreds of splashes of color—lazily dawdling in the midday heat. The island was dozing, relaxed and calm in the sun, everything seemed weightless, airy. The surreally immaculate blue of the sky of the last few days and weeks was still unmarked by haze. Without Breton-style exaggeration, this was the Mediterranean atmosphere par excellence. You could see palm trees, fig trees, eucalyptus trees, olive trees, camellias, mimosas, agaves, all that the Mediterranean had to offer, even the stunning lemon and orange trees that fascinated Dupin so much. The climate was—objectively!—not dissimilar to the Mediterranean climate. The gulf recorded 2,300 hours of sunshine a year, while Nice, for example, got only marginally more: 2,500 (Paris a measly 1,300!); and, this was spectacular: just 23.6 inches of precipitation a year. Nice had 30.2 inches (Paris a miserable 35.4 inches!). Vannes’s average temperature in January was forty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, and in Nice it was forty-three degrees. Henri knew all the figures by heart, he regaled Dupin with them over and over again—and Dupin was always suitably amazed.

  That’s why wine grapes had long been cultivated at the small sea, right up until the sixties, for more than a millennium; in the middle ages Christian Brittany had grown grapes all the way up to the Channel coast and to the edge of Finistère, everywhere. Wine for the Eucharist, of course. Wines like the ones from the Loire, white wines that, when cooled right down, were some of Dupin’s favorite whites and which Bretons considered “theirs”: wines like Muscadet, Anjou, Saumur, Chinon, Sancerre, or even Quincy.

  A minute later Dupin was standing at the end of the quay. The boat didn’t even moor properly; it touched the jetty briefly, delivered its passengers onto the island, and shuttled straight back. “Welcome to Izenah, the Île aux Moines—the Pearl of the Gulf.” There were large signs, small signs, directions to all kinds of things: restaurants, hotels, beaches, natural attractions—and of course also to—Dupin smirked, remembering Riwal’s stories—the “Cromlec’h des Kergonan” as well as the “Pen Hap Dolmen,” Caesar’s final resting place amidst all that gold, as Dupin now knew. Nolwenn would have been pleased with him—he knew what a cromlec’h was. He was a good pupil. And (unsurprisingly) the largest stone circle in France had been built here on the Île des Moines. With a radius of a hundred meters and twenty-seven stones each up to 1.8 meters tall and a mysterious focus of ritual. Before he arrived in Brittany, Dupin had, like every normal person, referred to everything from the Stone Age made of stone as a menhir—but the technical differentiation had been part of Nolwenn’s very first Breton lessons. The menhir—a Breton word that the whole world used as a technical term—was just the most famous stone, the standing stone. A large, erect monolith. Maen meaning “stone” and hir meaning “long.” Dupin would be able to rattle off the surprisingly straightforward wording till the end of his days. And also in the case of the “stone table” found all over the world, the Breton word was generally accepted, the “dol-men”—a structure made from large unhewn stone blocks that usually served as tombs. They were much more common than menhirs or cromlec’hs (and preferred as a tomb for fairies). Dupin liked the menhirs best (although his favorite baguette at his favorite bakery was called a dolmen). In the stories told since primeval times, the stone menhir giants were alive. Some made their way toward the sea on certain nights to slake their thirst or bathe—or performed dances to honor the dead when the moon was full. They grew like plants, were oracles or enchanted virgins, protected people like saints did: for example, you struck the “Roh-an-aod” with a hammer to get protection from the sea. To Dupin, the creepiest stories were the ones about menhirs having a tiny piece bitten off them by a dark creature every full moon—once it had swallowed up all of the menhir, the world would come to an end.

  There were all three kinds on the little Île aux Moines: menhirs, cromlec’hs, and dolmen. Izenah must have been a real draw, even for Neolithic people. With good reason, Dupin thought. Although in all likelihood not as many people had visited back then as did in the holiday season nowadays. Now, at the beginning of September, there was just a smattering of tourists. Dupin liked this, the exhausted, relaxed atmosphere of the off-season.

  He got his bearings, walked along the quay, and five minutes later he was standing outside Daeron’s house, or more accurately: outside the entrance to Daeron’s house. It turned out to be one of those wonderful villas he had seen from the boat, in the middle of a large estate lined with gorgeous trees and bushes. The villa was right by the sandy paradise beach, only separated from it by the elegant little street. Dupin had expected something completely different, more like Lilou Breval’s parents’ house. The money for this villa couldn’t have come from the salt marshes.

  A large wooden gate, the house number engraved on a tall granite stone next to it, no name, an aluminum doorbell. Dupin gave it a quick push and a moment later the gate slid open silently as if a ghost were operating it. He was expected.

  Maxime Daeron was coming toward him along the pale gravel path. He was wearing the same clothes as in the salt marshes, but he no longer looked like the man Dupin had met that morning. He looked distraught. Utterly distraught. And he made no attempt to hide it.

  “Come with me, we’ll go into the garden. And have a seat there.” He looked imploringly at Dupin, miserably. “I know Lilou trusted you. So I will too.”

  * * *

  “So she’s really dead?”

  Even his voice sounded different from this morning. It cracked.

  “Yes.”

  Dupin was keen to find out where this conversation was going. They had walked past the house and into the garden, which looked as splendid as expected. There was a large pool with dark granite all around it. And a vast terrace between the pool and the house.

  “She was murdered.” Daeron’s sentence was somewhere between a question and a statement.

  “That’s our assumption.”

  “Lilou’s neighbor called me. An old lady who liked Lilou very much. And Lilou liked her too. A close friend of her late mother’s. She had known Lilou since she was a child. The police were at her house this morning too.”

  “Why did the neighbor call you, Monsieur Daeron?”

  “We”—and here Daeron looked Dupin directly in the eye for the first time; he had avoided looking at him until now—“we were in a relationship. Lilou Breval and I. For the last year.”

  Dupin was speechless for a moment.

  “A secret relationship. I’m married. Although things with my wife, they’re…” He fell silent.

  “And?” Dupin couldn’t disguise an aggressive undertone.

  “I ended the relationship. Ten days ago. It wasn’t working anymore. Although that’s not what I actually wanted. I mean I didn’t want to end it. But I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t manage it.”

  Dupin was still struggling with this information. “Go on.”

  “She was hysterical. It seriously upset her.”

  Daeron was visibly struggling to speak, but Dupin had to ignore that.

  “And then what, Monsieur Daeron?”

  Maxime Daeron looked at Dupin in confusion.

  “After this meeting where you broke up—was there any contact after that?”

  “We spoke on the phone twice. On the following two days. They we
re … very emotional phone calls.”

  Maxime Daeron was struggling to maintain his composure. He looked truly distraught.

  “She thought I didn’t love her. But that wasn’t it. I didn’t want her to think that. I didn’t know what to do anymore. I … I didn’t know whether I actually wanted to leave my wife.”

  So far it all sounded like a pretty trivial story. Like a cliché. And it didn’t fit with the Lilou he knew. But he hadn’t known her all that well. And—these things happened, no matter how clever someone was, or how strong. He knew that. Above all and even more crucially: ultimately, nobody else could understand what existed between two people, so nobody could judge. Or prejudge. Sometimes, not even the two lovers themselves could say exactly what things were like between them; this was only revealed during the breakup, in the different, conflicting, embittered versions of the “same” story, which were then projected back onto the past as irrefutable “truths.” But in this case there was only one version. Daeron’s.

  “I called her again yesterday and we saw each other. Even though—”

  “You did what?” Dupin leapt abruptly to his feet. “You saw Lilou yesterday evening? When?”

  “We met up. Just for half an hour. But it wasn’t a good idea. It only made everything worse. It was terrible. I know I didn’t tell you the truth this morning. We had promised not to tell anyone about the relationship. I did have dinner with my wife, but then I went out again. I said I needed to work. And went to the house next door where I have my office. I left from there.”

  This news was unbelievable.

  “When exactly? When were you with her?”

  “I arrived around ten to eleven and then drove back about twenty past eleven, but I couldn’t say to the exact minute.” Maxime Daeron was obviously making an effort to give precise information. He was aware he was now the chief suspect based on these facts. “She had only just arrived at her parents’ house herself when I got there. The neighbor can confirm to you that I left at twenty past eleven.” Dupin could tell this was—unsurprisingly—extremely important to him. “Lilou walked me out to my car. The neighbor was outside with her dog. We said a quick hello. Lilou and I only ever met there. At her parents’ house, that was our place. And the neighbor knew about us. She knows me. She never said anything to anyone.”

  She hadn’t told the police anything either. Not this morning and not after the murder. She had stated only that she’d seen Lilou. Her loyalty had obviously run deep. And apparently she didn’t suspect Daeron. Perhaps because she really had seen Daeron leaving. Which ultimately didn’t mean a thing. Daeron would only have had to park his car in the patch of woodland a few hundred meters away and then walk back along the gulf. The fact that Maxime Daeron had voluntarily got in touch and was making these admissions meant equally little. Anything was possible. If the neighbor had seen him that night, it might have ended up coming out, despite her discretion—so he was better off coming clean as soon as possible. This applied whether his story was true and he really had driven straight home, or he was lying and he was the murderer. Even if that were the case, it was smart to tell this story now.

  “Where were you and Lilou?”

  “In the garden. Almost the entire time. I walked around a lot. Lilou was sitting down. She went into the kitchen a few times—you’ll definitely find my fingerprints.”

  That might explain the prints they’d found.

  “When did you get home?”

  Dupin had begun to note down the details. Especially the timing.

  “Ten past twelve. I drove quite slowly. My wife was already asleep. I was absolutely distraught. And I didn’t even know anything about the events in my salt ponds at that point. I was in my office when an inspector called me ten minutes later. And told me there had been a shooting. I called my brother immediately and told him. About the shooting. Not about meeting Lilou.”

  “The inspector got through to you on the landline?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you were in the house when you spoke to the inspector? In your office?”

  “Yes.”

  That was crucial. They could check that.

  “Did you see where Lilou Breval’s car was?”

  “Right in the driveway, round the side of the house. Where the main door is and where you get to the garden from.”

  So it hadn’t been complicated to place Lilou in her own car, unconscious, and drive away. This fit with the hypothetical reconstruction of the evening.

  “Did you get hold of your brother directly after the call from Inspector Chadron? So around twenty-five minutes past midnight?”

  “Exactly. Then I went for a walk. I only went to bed at two thirty. And got up again at six.”

  Dupin had drawn up a meticulous list of the timings in his Clairefontaine. Lilou’s house was a good forty-five minutes’ drive away. Daeron had been back in La Roche-Bernard at twenty past twelve, in his office. He wouldn’t have been able to manage it, not if he had been seen with Lilou alive at twenty past eleven. Even if he had come back to kill her straight after he said good-bye. He would not have been able to kill her, take the body to Pointe de Kerpenhir, and come back by the time of his verifiable presence in La Roche-Bernard. Let alone also drop into Lilou’s house in Sarzeau and remove documents. But he could of course have done that just as easily later in the night.

  “Is there a witness who saw you at home? Did your wife wake up?”

  “No.”

  It didn’t really matter. The phone calls were watertight. It wouldn’t have been possible in the time leading up to the phone call—but of course it could all have happened afterward, after the calls, the whole operation: Maxime could have come home and then gone out again without any difficulty. To commit the murder. Including the detour to Lilou’s house—which would probably have meant him coming back around three in the morning.

  “And later that night, after half past midnight, you didn’t do anything that would give you an alibi?” Dupin knew this was a ridiculous question.

  Maxime Daeron looked helplessly at Dupin. He answered haltingly: “No. No. My wife was asleep, as I said.”

  They weren’t going to make any progress on this point.

  “What was going on with the barrels, Monsieur Daeron? What did Lilou Breval uncover?”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  It seemed as though he had been expecting this question to come up earlier.

  “You were in a relationship with Lilou Breval, you’re a paludier—and she didn’t tell you anything about the suspicion she had?”

  “No. She never told me anything about it—that she was on the trail of something controversial in Gwenn Rann or anything like that. And yes, I’m sure she would have told me while we were still—together. So it must have been something that only came out recently.”

  “Have another think. What was Lilou Breval interested in? It’s very important.”

  “She was very interested in the changes, disputes, and conflicts in the White Land. Conflicts between the independents, the cooperative, the business group, and also the local authority and the region. She was interested in competition in the so-called global salt market.”

  “We know that already.”

  Dupin could see that Daeron had tears in his eyes. He was visibly struggling to keep it together. If everything he was saying were true, that would be all too understandable. And he must have been making a huge effort to stay composed this whole time. Daeron took a deep breath to muster his strength before answering.

  “I think she had been planning another long article about it. The one from last year was on the general side. So the interviews were more about specific conflicts. That’s how we got to know each other. Through her research, the interview. She also spoke to Monsieur Jaffrezic and Madame Laurent again in the last few months. I gathered that much but she never said when she actually wanted to write this article.”

  “What did she specifically want from Monsieur Jaffrezic a
nd Madame Laurent?”

  “I’m not quite sure.”

  “Tell me, in detail, about the disputes in the salt marshes. What do you know about them?”

  Daeron took his time answering.

  “The cooperative wants the independents, and Le Sel does too. Le Sel wants everyone. The group is making us all obscenely high offers. And it’s plotting at the local authority.”

  “Could you be more specific, please?”

  “They want the city and the region to end the subsidies so that they’ll have easy pickings, or so they think, but it’s a fantasy. Most of the paludiers would never sell. It’s a passion, a vocation.”

  “What else?”

  “Le Sel has applied for an extension to the salt marsh area. Around the outer edges of the existing pools. They want to increase the amounts of salt harvested by any means possible. They also want to cultivate more intensively, shorten the harvesting cycles through technical modifications to the salt marshes, like in their salt marshes in the Mediterranean. Install machines, especially automatic pumps and pumping systems so that they can cut down on the canals and the large reservoir pools. They want to cut down on paludiers and increase the yields. All of that. You know how it goes. It’s the way of things.”

  Dupin had been struck by an unexpected indifference and resignation in Daeron’s last few sentences. This didn’t sound like the proud paludier of this morning. Daeron seemed to have noticed this.

  “But they simply won’t achieve it”—he took a deep breath—“they’re doing it all wrong. Their only chance, even economically, is if the cottage industry of salt survives. That’s the only way. A cottage industry whose produce comes at a cost. Because it’s the best salt there is, the pure, natural sea. They use the same words as us, but they mean something completely different.”

  “And this extension, has this application been officially drawn up?”

  “Yes, it was drawn up two years ago. There have already been dozens of consultations about it. We’re working in a strictly regulated, priority nature reserve. It’s impossible really. But who knows? The local authority might suddenly grant these kinds of applications after all. Miracles do happen.” There was unadulterated cynicism in his words.