The Fleur de Sel Murders_A Brittany Mystery

by Jean-Luc Bannalec

  Two men were coming toward him along the waterline—he hadn’t noticed them at first—both wearing dark beige outdoor wear, one lanky, the other stocky.

  “Are you a member of the ‘Listen to the Birdsong’ campaign? Have you seen the common shelducks and little egrets over there? Beautiful specimens, hundreds of them! Hundreds!”

  The second man, Stocky, nodded eagerly. He had binoculars round his neck too—almost down to his knees—and carried a backpack. “And the herring gulls!”

  The first man, Lanky, took over again. “Masses of saltwort and sea lavender. What’s your specialty?”

  “I … no, I’m not in ‘Listen to the Birdsong.’” Dupin was almost so careless as to ask what that was, but he resisted at the last moment.

  “You don’t have any equipment either! Surely you’re a scientist. You’re taking part in the famous ornithological Wetlands International meet-up. This is quite something! You must be a real expert,” the Stocky man said very respectfully.

  “I … no. I’m investigating”—Dupin hesitated—“a murder case.” The moment he uttered this, he knew it had been an extremely stupid idea to answer the man seriously.

  The two birdwatchers looked at each other for a few moments—almost speechless and clearly worried about the psychological integrity of this strange man in the mud flats—and probably decided it was for the best to ignore his odd interjection.

  “Almost two-thirds of the gulf is exposed at low tide, revealing gigantic sand-mud-flat expanses like this one here. You’re in one of the richest bird zones on the Atlantic coast.”

  Their missionary zeal had been sparked. The tall man didn’t stop now: “The mixture of sand, mud, and silt here encourages the development of grasses and algae where thousands of animals nest, up to four thousand per cubic meter, you’ve got to imagine it, shrimp, venus clams, larvae, snails, heaps of worms.” Dupin automatically cast a mistrustful look at the ground in front of him. “A legendary pantry for a whole host of resident birds. And also for the migratory birds. Siberian wild geese, diving ducks, eiders, terns, spoonbills, they love this microclimate.”

  Dupin was not well versed in all things ornithological. Not well versed and not gifted. Nolwenn, Riwal, and even Henri had tried to teach him at least the basics, but in vain.

  This situation was absurd. Dupin would bid them farewell with a fairly friendly au revoir. He really needed to get going.

  “You even see little penguins here at the gulf sometimes. Not often though.”

  “Penguins?” Dupin blurted out.

  Penguins were his favorite birds, perhaps because he had always felt a kind of affinity with them, also because of his very sturdy build. Penguins looked portly and stiff at first and in fact not very dynamic if you saw them waddling. But once they were in their element, water, they were incredibly agile, quick as lightning and highly skilled.

  “They actually live in colonies on the Sept-Îles in Northern Brittany, but now and again you see a few specimens here.”

  Dupin was stunned. But then again, Australian marsupials seemed to have found their natural habitat in Brittany, so why not penguins too?

  The two ornithologists were pleasantly surprised that the strange man in the mud flats was now showing such a special interest all of a sudden.

  “It belongs to the family of plover species that occur exclusively in the northern hemisphere. Auks. The size of geese. A diving seabird with legs set far back on its body so that it has a more or less upright posture when it’s on land. Its morphological appearance resembles that of the penguin from the southern hemisphere. Unlike penguins, most auks have retained the ability to fly.”

  The second man chimed in. “The only flightless species from this family, the great auk, died out in prehistoric times,” he declaimed dramatically, the emphasis placed on the “died” to great effect.

  “I … thanks. I’ve got to go now. Au revoir.” Dupin turned away with a vague wave.

  “There actually has been a murder here, by the way, the media have been reporting it since yesterday. You should be careful with your jokes. And give bird-watching a go sometime—it’s relaxing and it sets the soul free.”

  Dupin heard these words behind him very clearly and decided to ignore them.

  They weren’t really penguins after all. But in a way they were, if Dupin had understood correctly. But this information was enough to put the Sept-Îles on his list of places to make an excursion to. But now, now he would concentrate on the case again.

  Three minutes later, Dupin was standing by his car. He looked at his watch. He really needed to hurry. As he carefully got into his car—by now he had a technique that worked well for his shoulder—he saw to his dismay how dirty his shoes were from the mud and algae. At least his pants had stayed clean today.

  * * *

  “Why did you keep quiet about Maxime Daeron wanting to sell his salt marsh to you? And also about the fact there was a preliminary agreement already in place and that you almost sued him when he wanted to annul it? And that this happened shortly after the end of an affair between you? Which, I suspect, Maxime Daeron ended, not you.”

  Rose seemed to have taken the gloves off as far as Madame Laurent was concerned.

  Dupin had almost been on time; he had caught the ferry in Port-Blanc. Rose was pacing up and down outside Madame Laurent’s house, talking on the phone, when he got there.

  “Business activities of that kind are absolutely confidential, especially if the seller requests discretion—why would I have mentioned it? And of course our legal department tackles things that are counter to our interests where the legal assessment is clear. That has absolutely nothing to do with me personally.”

  This was the same Madame Laurent whom they knew from yesterday. But it was remarkable that even in the face of what they now knew and were asking—and Rose’s even tougher approach—she remained totally unfazed. She was wearing a colorful silk tunic with a clunky Hermès necklace around her neck and was sitting low in her black leather chair. Ostentatiously relaxed. Dupin and Rose were sitting in the two other chairs, diagonally opposite her. Everything in this large, long bungalow was intended to look sophisticated, tastefully sophisticated, but not sterile. Exposed oak parquet flooring with discreet, expensive rugs here and there on it. Arranged perfectly and hence, in Dupin’s opinion, appalling.

  “And of course I won’t say a word about my private relationships. Not even now. That is no concern of the police.”

  “Your former lover is dead. A death that in all likelihood is related to the murder of Lilou Breval and the attack on Commissaire Dupin. It’s very much the police’s concern.”

  “Only a judge can order me to say anything about it. You know that. And to do that, you’d need to have me arrested first and file legal proceedings.”

  “Here’s what we’ll do, Madame Laurent: we will ascertain grounds for suspicion as quickly as possible and take you to my commissariat for questioning.” Rose smiled that pretty smile of hers, and it could not have been more diabolical. “Then we’ll see about the rest.”

  “How did the conversations about selling the salt marshes arise?” Dupin’s voice was deliberately quiet.

  Madame Laurent turned straight to him. And smiled herself. Sweetly. “At least they still have manners in Paris.” She seemed to think briefly. For some reason she decided to answer this question, maybe purely to demonstrate her unpredictability. “Maxime came to me, requesting absolute confidentiality. Last October or November was the first time.”

  “And?” Dupin pressed.

  “And what?”

  “Why did he want to sell?”

  “That was none of my business.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “How much money was involved?”

  “I won’t tell you that.”

  “Why did Maxime Daeron suddenly want to dissolve the contract? And back away from the sale?”

  “That was none of my business either.
And do you know how many deals fail to go through at the last minute? It’s not that uncommon.”

  “You already had a signed preliminary agreement.”

  “Exactly. That’s why Le Sel didn’t want to just accept it. That’s standard procedure too.”

  “And why did you then drop the lawsuit?”

  “We decided the disadvantages would have outweighed the advantages for us. The frenzied coverage. Some people would have had a field day.”

  This was remarkably cynical. Yet Dupin managed to remain largely calm. “Did his brother know about the sale?”

  “I couldn’t say. And that’s got nothing to do with me.”

  “I don’t believe a word you say, Madame Laurent. Not a single word,” Rose spoke up.

  Dupin had to admit that he hadn’t got very far with her either. “And we’re going to prove it,” she said.

  “All right then, bonne chance!”

  Rose tried another line of attack: “Where were you yesterday evening?”

  “You mean when the tragic suicide of Maxime Daeron took place?”

  “Which doesn’t seem to have upset you in the slightest.”

  “I didn’t know this was meant to be a forum for emotional outbursts.”

  “So where were you?”

  “Here, in my paradise. As I am nearly every evening.” She looked out into the garden, taking her time. “And alone again. In fact I can’t stand having other people here.”

  She ran a hand through her hair with showy nonchalance. Dupin hadn’t really been following this last battle of words. The vague link between ideas he’d briefly had in Lilou’s house suddenly crossed his mind again.

  “We know about the blind pool.” Commissaire Rose returned to her aggressive style. “Right next to one of your salt marshes. About the microorganisms. Very soon we will also know what their exact purpose is. Tell us about that.”

  For the very first time, Madame Laurent looked rattled, albeit momentarily.

  “Are we going to start talking about those blue barrels yet again? I have no idea which pool or what microorganisms you mean. This really does seem to be a rather mysterious case.”

  Dupin’s mind drifted off again. He couldn’t help it. This wasn’t the first time. An idea had formed from the vague scraps of thought in his head. It sounded insane but—and this was one of the most important lessons of police work—that didn’t matter.

  “The barrels are in your—”

  “I think we’re done here,” Dupin said, and stood up.

  He turned around and walked toward the door, without waiting for a response or saying good-bye. He could still hear Rose saying something but couldn’t make out what it was.

  He went into the garden, and walked down the long, dazzlingly white gravel path with the stylish white enameled floor lamps that towered up into the sky at regular intervals. He went as far as the large driveway, where an Audi the color of anthracite was parked.

  He opened the small wooden gate and was standing on the little island path.

  It was just under ten minutes from here to the island’s long ferry quay at Cale de Bélure. The position of the bungalow was captivating, there was less than fifty meters of rugged meadowland between it and the waterline, as well as a long stretch of sandy beach, one of the many beaches on the quiet, sleepy island. The idyllic path to the harbor ran alongside the water—just like elsewhere on the wildly overgrown, flat island full of hydrangeas, camellias, and small patches of woodland, you could always see the raging gulf everywhere. Dupin liked this fleet-footed sister island to the Île aux Moines; it wasn’t responsible for its arrogant resident.

  As he closed the gate, Dupin saw Rose on the gravel path. She must have left Madame Laurent right after he had.

  “What was that about?” Rose came aggressively close to him. Her right hand in the pocket of her jacket, her thumb outside, the pose he knew so well by now. She looked him right in the eye for a few seconds, without blinking. Fierce scrutiny.

  “I need to speak to the chemist. Right away.”

  This was no time for beating about the bush. Surprisingly, Rose went along with it.

  “0 24 07 67 24—Didier Goal.”

  Dupin punched in the number that Rose clearly knew by heart.

  He would have liked to make the call in private. Especially because his vague idea was still precisely that right now: vague. But that didn’t matter now. So Rose would be there.

  It only rang once. “Hello?”

  A friendly female voice.

  “Commissaire Georges Dupin—is Monsieur Goal there?”

  “I take it this course of action has been agreed on with Commissaire Rose?”

  “I … she’s standing right next to me.”

  There was a brief silence and Dupin could literally hear the friendly voice considering checking this. She didn’t.

  “He’ll be back in a few minutes. He just left the room. I’m his assistant.”

  “I’ll call back.”

  “Please do.”

  Dupin hung up.

  “Let’s go, then we can make the ferry at quarter to,” Rose said, and turned around. She headed straight for the harbor, her phone already pressed to her ear.

  * * *

  The fifteen-minute journey between the Île d’Arz and Port-Blanc—which, Dupin found to his dismay, involved a trip on a small boat—passed close by the Île aux Moines, along with a series of other sleepy islands with a handful of rather tall pines and stone pines poking upward and magnificent houses scattered across them. People said the little sea was most beautiful from the water (Dupin thought this unbearable rubbish—from Le San Francisco, for instance, it was all just as beautiful).

  Rose had been on the phone constantly—a good half-dozen phone calls—but she had stayed close to him the whole time, even at the harbor. The chemist’s line was permanently busy.

  Dupin had taken up a position in the bow of the Albatros. The boat had just cast off with low-pitched vibrations and buzzing from the diesel engine. He waited for it to be a little quieter and dialed again.

  This time the line was free. A man’s voice answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Monsieur Goal? Commissaire Dupin.”

  “My colleague said you wanted to speak to me. We’re still in the midst of testing. It’s proving to be quite complex. We’re trying to identify the microorganisms.”

  Rose had deftly come even closer to Dupin. Very close indeed. Their cheeks were almost touching now.

  “Has the question of destruens been confirmed?”

  “We’re sure about that, yes. Clearly heterotrophic bacteria.”

  Dupin hesitated. But only for a second. “Can these kinds of microorganisms be used for special purposes? In a very targeted way?”

  Dupin was now holding the phone in a way that meant Rose didn’t need to get any closer to listen in.

  “Of course. There are endless numbers of purposes.”

  “Traces of green algae were found in the pool, weren’t they?”

  Rose’s facial expression changed suddenly, her eyes narrowing.

  “As far as I know, yes. But you should ask the forensics team that, they documented everything.”

  “Could you use certain microorganisms,” Dupin said slowly, cautiously, “specifically so as to decompose green algae? Is that conceivable?”

  “By green algae you must mean the ulva armoricana and ulva rotundata. The ones from the ‘marrées vertes’?”

  “Yes.” Dupin had never heard of the ulvas, but he did mean the algae from the “marrées vertes.” The huge masses of green algae that washed up whenever the “green tide” came in.

  “Absolutely. I’m not aware of these microorganisms being used specifically for this algae before. But generally speaking, for a long time, microorganisms have been used to combat algae and also some micro green algae species. You can get various ‘algae-killer’ products on the market. In any hardware store. Particularly microorganisms that fight slime
algae and thread algae. For a pool or aquarium. Of course it’s theoretically possible for the ulva species too. You’d apply the microorganisms extensively in the large bays affected, as necessary, and perhaps even systematically prevent algae from forming.”

  There was quite a long pause. Two motorboats were driving past their ferry and it was loud.

  “Hello, are you still there?”

  “I’m still here.”

  Dupin’s thoughts were racing, his mind working at a feverish pace. Was this the key to it all? He had slight goose bumps. The green algae had snagged his attention a few times. They had turned up again and again, especially today. A vague connection had formed in his thoughts: the blue barrels that must have contained something; the idea that it wasn’t about the salt itself at all, that the pool had been used for something else; the discovery of the strange blind pool and of the destruens, including the issue of what they decomposed; finally, the remains of half-dissolved green algae they had seen in the pool—and above all, Lilou’s article about the thirty-six dead wild boar.

  “How complicated would that be—developing microorganisms like this?”

  “Very complicated indeed. Ulva armoricana and ulva rotundata are of course much larger and more complex organisms than slime algae in pools. The thing that would make it very laborious and tricky would be the field testing. It might not be that difficult to develop a formula in the lab. But it would have to be perfectly safe. You’d need to observe it over the course of years and prove it thoroughly.”

  “How would you go about doing that?”

  “You’d need to select which microorganisms would be involved. Various different ones, maybe. Or breed them from scratch, perhaps through genetic modification—but that might not even be necessary. It would be a form of adulteration. It would require a wealth of biochemical knowledge, a laboratory, and even possible studies in vivo, but it’s all achievable, theoretically.”

  The chemist continued, describing everything else in a very professional way. He was completely absorbed by the scientific and practical achievability of this.

  “Would a pool like that in the salt marshes be a suitable place for an attempt?”