Dupin would have liked to say more about the shark, for instance that Kiki was more of a name for a budgie. But he let it go. He had shaken off his astonishment at the—in the eyes of a city man—highly unusual animals of Brittany. They were a part of everyday life: extravagant sea and land creatures, porpoises, bottlenose dolphins, small penguins. Most recently he had encountered Skippy, the giant kangaroo. One day he would probably come across the Great Mammoth, the rhinoceros, the bison, and the giant panther who had lived in Brittany in ancient times, up until recently in effect, if you were judging by the Breton sense of time.

  “I suggest we make plans to meet here again tomorrow. And keep talking.” Madame Bandol signaled to Jacqueline as she spoke.

  “We’ve conducted soil tests at the spot where you saw the corpse.”

  “Very unlikely that they’ll find something. With that rain. And I only saw the blood on the upper body.”

  Dupin gave a start. “You said you weren’t sure where it was.”

  “Well, apparently I do know. It was on the upper body, I’m telling you now. It has just come back to me,” she said with conviction. “It helps when we talk about it. The lower section of the coat was clean, for example.”

  “A coat, you remember a coat now too?”

  “Yes, dark green. Or a long jacket.”

  “Dark green? You could see that?”

  “I could see reasonably well at that distance.”

  Confused, Dupin noted it all down. Blood on the upper body. Coat or longish jacket, dark green. Then he crossed out a few other things.

  “I’ve got to go now, Monsieur le Commissaire.”

  Jacqueline had brought the bill on a plastic saucer.

  “I’ll take the liberty of settling this,” Madame Bandol said. She had taken out her purse and was placing a few notes on the saucer without even looking at Dupin.

  “Thank you very much, Madame.”

  “This has been fun. We’re a team now.” She looked at Dupin, and it was clear she was waiting for a reply, even though it couldn’t have been a question.

  “I guess so, Madame Bandol.”

  She stood up and Jacqueline appeared with the bright yellow oilskin jacket that had become one of the many emblems of Brittany. When their “inventor,” Guy Cotten, died some years before, public mourning had taken place here for several days. He had designed the iconic yellow jacket for the professional deep-sea fishermen in 1966, and they were now well known around the world. The jacket also answered one of the questions that Dupin had still had: how Madame Bandol could have taken her daily walk in the heavy rain. She was also wearing sturdy shoes, he now noticed. Proper hiking boots, dark brown. Dupin was seeing Madame Bandol in full for the first time now. She was wearing a long, black, elegant yet comfortable-looking skirt and a kind of casual blazer with a matte silk top underneath, also in black. She looked fantastic. The bright yellow of the coat reaching almost to her shoes was a dramatic contrast to the black underneath. Zizou stood next to her, fully awake now. He obviously knew the procedure, the evenings spent here, the sequence of events.

  Dupin had stood up too.

  “See you tomorrow then, Monsieur le Commissaire. Jacqueline can tell you how to reach me.”

  “Yes, see you tomorrow then. It was a pleasure to meet you, Madame Bandol. A great pleasure!”

  “Oh, Monsieur Dupin.” Madame smiled mischievously and left.

  Dupin sat down again. He was not in any hurry. The whole business was too crazy.

  He looked out the window. At the river. The ships on the buoys were bobbing harder now, the tide was coming in. He reflected on the corpse that had disappeared, the extraordinary and baffling Madame Bandol, and on what he should do about this whole case.

  And he had no answer.

  * * *

  The sea at the horizon, at the end of the Belon, was shimmering a violet and orange color now, the sun having sunk quietly into the Atlantic. And the sky too had only changed color in one narrow stripe this evening—sometimes the colors clung to the horizon—otherwise it was nothing but that lucid, crystalline blue, as if the sky were trying to defend it to the last. It was only in the east that it was enveloped by the oncoming blackness.

  Dupin was standing on the small jetty, very close to the water, as always. He got out his phone.

  “Monsieur le Commissaire?”

  “That’s all for today, Nolwenn.”

  “Riwal has already told me.” This was how it always worked—Nolwenn was perfectly up to speed at all times. “No new findings. So nothing else useful has occurred to Madame Bandol.”

  “No, there are a few details,” Dupin said, and passed on the new information.

  “So did she seem confused to you?”

  “No. Now and again, maybe. She told some eccentric stories, and I’ve seen how impressively oddly her memory functions. She—” Dupin broke off. Of course it couldn’t be ruled out that she really was confused.

  “I mean, is she genuinely not with it? Suffering from dementia? Could she have imagined the whole thing?”

  “No.”

  “So you believe her then. Good! Follow your instinct, Monsieur le Commissaire!” As Nolwenn saw it, instinct was the most reliable thing a person could have.

  Dupin’s forehead creased. “I really do believe her. I think she saw someone lying there. I think there are too many details and they’re too precise.”

  Dupin knew that these random, precise details were not surefire proof. They could equally be a hint at the opposite assumption. But his instinct still told him—including after the more in-depth conversation—that what Madame Bandol was saying was essentially true. That there had been an injured or dead man there in the parking lot.

  “All right. Then we have got a case,” Nolwenn declared matter-of-factly but full of energy. “So, here we go. First of all we should check if anyone was reported missing yesterday or today, somewhere in Finistère or in Morbihan. Throughout Brittany. If there was a corpse, then someone is missing somewhere now! Male; dark brown hair, possibly short; dark green jacket or coat; injury to the torso; drives a dark car. Or a red one. That’s something anyway.”

  A pitiful set of facts, thought Dupin. Still, they had to start somewhere. Sometimes routine helped.

  “Have someone call the hospitals and doctors in private practice in Riec and the surrounding districts. As far as Lorient and Quimper. Ask whether a man was brought in early in the evening. Or made his own way there injured,” he said.

  “Noted. Inspector Kadeg will deal with that. Inspector Riwal will have to do some cramming tonight.” Nolwenn left an artful pause and then switched into a solemn tone: “For tomorrow, for the diploma.”

  The diploma. Of course.

  For weeks, Riwal had kept the whole commissariat on its toes with it. The final exam for the seminar “Breton Languages and Cultures” at the Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique at the University of Brest. A three-hour class every Tuesday evening for two semesters. Dupin had to admit he had found it ludicrous to see Riwal of all people—the particularly proud Breton—taking part. But on the other hand that was the very reason it made sense. Nolwenn suspected it had something to do with Riwal’s impending fatherhood; that he wanted to prepare in a suitably “well-grounded” way for the birth of his son. A suspicion that Riwal, and they were eight months in now, had not contradicted. The seminar comprehensively covered the various Breton languages, the culture, art, literature, but especially the history. Which essentially meant—judging by what Riwal talked about with great enthusiasm every week in the commissariat—one thing: looking at all of human history and working out what Bretons had invented, discovered, and completed first. It was a quintessentially Breton discipline—Dupin had long since internalized it—that was practiced everywhere, in magazines, books, on the radio; a popular sport. In recent weeks Riwal had been questioning his colleagues in the style of a quiz show, so in the afternoons the whole commissariat sat together. The first monumental construction of humanity? No, not the Egyptian pyramids, as everyone would assume, but the seventy-five-meter-long Breton stone tombs, the Cairn de Barnenez. Built when? 4500 BC. The pyramids weren’t built till two thousand years later!

  “I’ve already signed Riwal’s application for those two days off on your behalf. Tomorrow it’s the written exams, next week it’s the orals,” Nolwenn said.

  “Then Kadeg will have to take it on. Of course. He’s to call me straightaway.”

  “He will. And tomorrow morning the two of us will speak about your party. Whether you like it or not. There are only a few days left.”

  Dupin did not want to. He absolutely did not want to. He hadn’t wanted to from the beginning, he hadn’t wanted the party at all. At first he had been able to delay the ridiculous idea of throwing a party for his five-year work anniversary. Once the “promotion” that Nolwenn consistently referred to as an “honor for the entire commissariat” had also come along, he no longer stood a chance. It had become an obsession. Besides, Nolwenn had threatened a “surprise party” in the event that he continued to refuse to cooperate, the ultimate threat for Dupin.

  “Let’s do that.” He sighed.

  “I’m not in tomorrow afternoon, if you remember?”

  Dupin had forgotten. “Of course.”

  The funeral. Somewhere inland. Aunt Elwen, one of the many aunts in Nolwenn’s clan, with all of its branches. Nolwenn didn’t seem to have been all that close to her. Last week when she announced she had to go to the funeral, she had immediately added a joke, some typical Breton humor, which was in no way inferior to the dry humor of British Celts. An elderly Breton meets someone of their own age at a guild meeting. “Harryston, old chap, I wanted to express my condolences. I heard you buried your wife last week.” “I had to, mate, she was dead, you know.”

  “Well, I’ll make the calls now and then I’ll go home. Bonne soirée, Monsieur le Commissaire.”

  “Bonne soirée, Nolwenn.”

  She had hung up.

  Dupin looked at the waters flowing inland. They were surging with such incredible force and speed. It was impressive every time: the enormous quantities of water that flowed toward the source, conquering the land. He walked slowly up the road to the parking lot. To the right and left were the two old manor houses of the oyster dynasties. He would drive to Concarneau and drink a Lambig at the Amiral. Paul, the owner, had got some of the new vintage from his brother-in-law.

  The parking lot was deserted—Dupin’s Citroën was the only car there. It was almost dark; the tall, densely packed trees didn’t let much light through.

  Suddenly, when Dupin was just a few paces away from his car, there was a strange sound. He started. A kind of croaking. Eerie. Hard to identify. But close by. It seemed to be coming from the other side of the car. Dupin remained motionless. His muscles tensed. His right hand had moved automatically to his weapon. For a moment nothing at all happened.

  Then suddenly a misshapen brown head appeared from behind the bumper. Dark eyes focused on the commissaire. And then the misshapen body followed.

  A goose. A large, majestic goose.

  The strange croaking had turned into unmistakable aggressive sounds. Dupin knew a lot about geese. In the little one-horse town in the Jura that his father came from and where Dupin had spent nearly all of his holidays as a child, he had had enough unpleasant, distressing encounters with geese to give him enough respect for bad-tempered specimens to last him the rest of his life. They could turn into monsters. And this one was not just any old goose, it was the most capricious, temperamental breed of all: a Toulouse goose.

  It was coming toward him in a fierce, gaggling rage, with a grim look in its eye. Dupin shrank backward as quick as a flash. The goose suddenly stopped, scurrying slightly to the left and then back to the right as if it was drawing an invisible line that was supposed to mean: you will not cross this.

  Dupin knew how fast geese could be. His chances of outsmarting it with a special running maneuver were extremely poor. And betting on wearing it down, waiting until it gave up and moved, was a bad tactic with geese—they were even more obstinate than he was. Things looked bad. There was just one option left. Dupin turned round and walked briskly back into La Coquille. He stopped at the counter. One of the sisters was busy polishing the glasses. She cast him a curious glance.

  “I need some vegetable scraps,” Dupin said very firmly, quickly adding a “please.”

  “You’re well informed for a Parisian.” There was genuine respect in the old lady’s friendly voice. She turned around, disappearing into the kitchen and returning with a plastic bag a few minutes later.

  “Carrot peelings, salad scraps, cucumber peelings—our special mixture for Charlie, he loves it. He’s not having a good time of it at the moment. Lovesick. Good luck.”

  Dupin just nodded. It would no doubt have turned into a funny conversation, but he wanted to get going. The commissaire knew there was only one thing more powerful than the mysterious wrath of geese: their love of eating. And vegetable scraps had been his grandmother’s tried and tested home remedy. They worked every time.

  The goose, Charlie, was standing—just as Dupin had expected—exactly where he had left him earlier. The angry gaggling started up again immediately. Dupin took aim, throwing the bag to the left, in the direction of the hedge, not so far away that Charlie could have remained uninterested, but far enough to ensure he could walk past safely on the right.

  It worked. Although only just. Dupin sprinted to his car, wrenching the car door open on his last stride and jumping inside. Just in time to escape a beating from Charlie, as he had in fact decided to go on the attack after a quick snack. The commissaire started up the engine, put the car in reverse, and drove out of the parking lot in a sweeping arc. Charlie followed the car for a few meters, then returned to his special mixture, gaggling.

  Dupin had a smile on his face. He actually liked geese.

  The call from Kadeg didn’t come till he was almost in Concarneau. An extremely short call.

  Kadeg didn’t have any news to report. Not even anything minor. Neither his nor Nolwenn’s calls had turned up anything. No recently missing man in all of Brittany.

  That would have been too simple anyway.

  Dupin was looking forward to the Lambig.

  The Second Day

  “Yes, no doubt about it—we’ve got a dead body, Monsieur le Commissaire. A corpse. It’s definitely there, why do you ask?”

  “Is someone near it?” Dupin was standing there thunderstruck, the phone pressed hard to his ear.

  “Me. I mean, I’m near it.”

  “Are you keeping an eye on it the whole time?”

  “I’m standing here a few meters away from the corpse, I can see it the whole time.” The policeman sounded stressed. Stressed and bewildered.

  “I don’t want the corpse to be unsupervised for a second. And where, tell me—where is the body?”

  “In the Monts d’Arrée. Almost underneath the Roc’h Trévézel. I’m sure you know the D785, the mountain road that runs along the mountain ridges of the Monts d’Arrée—on the other side, where—”

  “Unbelievable!”

  He knew the mountain road over the “mountains,” but it was a hundred kilometers away from Port Belon, a little way north of Quimper and far inland. A secluded area in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

  “Is he wearing a dark green jacket? Or a dark green coat?”

  “A dark green jacket?” The policeman—a gendarme from Sizun—was increasingly despairing. “No, he’s wearing a beige jacket and it’s covered in blood. And torn. Jeans. Brown leather shoes or sneakers.”

  “Short, dark brown hair? Injuries to the upper body?”

  “He has injuries everywhere, Monsieur le Commissaire. The body is horribly contorted. He’s lying directly beneath one of the steep peaks. He must have fallen from it. But there’s something else,” the policeman said.

  “What?”

  “There are terrible hematomas on his neck. The doctor thinks he could have been strangled. Before the fall. He is positive the hematomas didn’t happen during the fall, anyway. It doesn’t look like an accident.”

  “Strangled?”

  This was all difficult to believe. Dupin didn’t wait for an answer.

  “What kind of doctor are you talking about?”

  “Our GP from Sizun. He came straight with us. As a precaution. The man could still have been alive, of course. He’s a very good doctor, eighty, but very fit.”

  “And he’s certain about the hematomas? Already?”

  Medical examiners always said they wouldn’t give any opinions until the final results of the autopsy.

  “Yes, absolutely. Do you want to speak to him directly?”

  “No, no. And the short, dark brown hair?”

  “It’s not long, I’d say. What do you mean by short? Buzzed?”

  “Averagely short.”

  “Could be. And the hair definitely isn’t blond or red, anyway. It’s hard to tell because it’s covered in blood and anyway the head is hard to—”

  “And there’s nothing to identify him?”

  “There’s nothing in the pockets of his pants or jacket. It looks as though someone made sure there was nothing left to find.”

  “What age would you say he is?”

  “Oh—that’s hard to say too. Mid-sixties perhaps. As I say: the corpse is in a bad state.”

  “And the official medical examiner? Where’s he coming from?”

  “She is coming from Brest. She ought to be here soon.”

  Dupin had almost reached his Citroën. The call had come in as he was on his way from his apartment to the Amiral. He had walked straight to his car, which as always was parked in the big square right by the harbor—in contravention of all official regulations that provided obligatory parking for the police in the exclusive spaces at the commissariat.

 

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