The First Day
There were days when the world was one thing above all else: sky.
May 24 was one of those days. Glorious, bathed in light, clear, bright, with a freshly washed feel.
The heavens looked wider and higher than usual. It seemed like space was expanding, as if the earth’s atmosphere were reaching farther into the universe. The sky was a radiant, celestial blue that gradually paled only at the horizon. A curious, oddly pulsating blue, it might be mistaken for a kind of energy or substance in and of itself. The earth appeared to contract underneath this expanse of blue, becoming flatter and smaller.
Commissaire Georges Dupin from Concarneau was lying on his back in the grass. He had stretched himself right out on a summit high above the sea. It was a green hilltop that soared into the sky before the steep cliffs, an impressive seventy-two meters above sea level—according to a sign in the parking lot. The hilltop was covered in heather, bright yellow gorse, bushy grasses and mosses in all kinds of colors: green, rust-red, yellow.
The outermost headland in the very west of Finistère was called the Pointe du Raz, its towering cliffs jutting far out into the Atlantic in the shape of a rough, jagged wedge. The northern end of the Bay of Biscay, the legendary pointe, was battered by powerful, turbulent currents, while the other end extended as far as the west coast of Spain. Riddled with sandbanks, it was one of the most dangerous parts of the whole Atlantic, with huge amounts of water gushing around Brittany and into the English Channel where it turned into the North Sea.
The view from up here was breathtaking: the majestic Atlantic, the strange cliffs (they looked like a dragon’s tail), two intrepid lighthouses on inhospitable rocks and, in the distance, the stunning Île de Sein. If you truly wanted to experience the End of the World, there was perhaps no more impressive a place to do so than the Pointe du Raz. You could see it, you could feel it: finis terrae. The last stronghold defying the wild, seemingly endless ocean. All of a sudden, solid ground felt dizzyingly fragile.
There’s another of Brittany’s mysteries you can see particularly well in this spot: the unique interplay of light and color. It seemed to Dupin there was more light in Brittany than there was in other places. Its extraordinary luminosity made the colors there extraordinary too, being simply refractions of this light. It made it seem like the spectrum of color visible to the human eye—the spectrum from red to orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—was much wider ranging here. As if the light endlessly refracted on the surface of the water around the Breton peninsula was more finely nuanced. This intensity of light and color had beguiled even the greatest of fans: Monet, Gauguin, Picasso, and many other painters had fallen under Brittany’s spell.
Ever since Dupin’s first visit to it, the Pointe du Raz had been on his list of favorite places. Outside of tourist season. There were two reasons for today’s trip: the first was Le Fumoir de la Pointe du Raz, a new fish smokehouse nearby that Riwal had raved about. They smoked the finest fish from the dangerous strait there, most notably lieus jaunes, a particular kind of cod. They were generally smoked with the “incomparable flavors of the smoke from Breton oaks and with a secret mixture of various types of pepper and spices.” The smokehouse belonged to the cousin of a cousin of Riwal’s. Dupin hadn’t been listening properly at the time. Riwal’s distant family relationships—which included friends he considered family—always baffled the commissaire. In any case, Riwal’s glowing report had persuaded Dupin to visit the fish smokehouse. And he and Claire were having their first evening off together in weeks, because Claire had been working at the hospital more or less without a break. Lieu jaune was her favorite kind of fish and she liked smoked fish in general. Dupin wanted to surprise her.
The second reason for the trip was the renovation work at the police station. It had been going on for four weeks now and was an absolute nightmare. The company they had hired had promised the running of the station would be “completely unaffected,” which was nonsense, even in theory. And, of course, that wasn’t how it had turned out in practice either. Utter chaos had broken out on the very first day. Everything affected the running of the station, not to mention the added noise, dust, and dirt. And of course—the painter having assured them “the whole thing will be totally odorless”—there was an immediate, unbearable stench of paint. Even throwing open all the windows and doors hadn’t made any difference. The only good thing about it was that the stench of paint and solvents masked the hideous underlying smell of the building that had been driving Dupin mad since his first day of work—although he was the only person who noticed it. Dupin hoped the smell might even be completely gone by the end of the renovation.
All of the staff at the station had made a break for it in the last few weeks. Only an ever-changing skeleton crew held down the fort. Everyone had constantly been looking for new and increasingly imaginative excuses for avoiding the office. Outrageous incidents such as a raided carrot patch or unauthorized mussel-harvesting on the beach suddenly had to be investigated at the scene. Sometimes they went out in threes or fours. They had taken up ancient “open cases” again: the theft of three surfboards last October and the disappearance of a pink dinghy in the harbor. Everyone had been glad when there really had been a crime: during the demolition of an old house in Pont-Aven, six hundred Belgian gold coins from 1870 had been found. A real treasure trove; it was valued at a few hundred thousand euro and the find sparked wild speculation.
At the beginning of the week, even Dupin’s assistant, Nolwenn, had reached the end of her rope. A bucket of thick paint had leaked outside her door and she had stepped right in it. For weeks beforehand she had been gamely trying to remain calm, but after this incident she had promptly taken several days off. This had instantly made Dupin nervous, all the more so because she had given no details whatsoever about when she planned to return to the office. Over the years—through vast amounts of overtime—Nolwenn must have saved up several months’ worth of holiday. Dupin didn’t dare check. Nolwenn being absent for quite a long time—especially in protest—would, and there was no doubt about this, end in disaster sooner or later. She and her husband had lost no time setting off on a cycling tour that had originally been scheduled for September. A very special cycling tour, inspired by the Breton bestseller Bistrot Breizh: Le tour de Bretagne des vieux cafés à vélo, which was a guide to the oldest, most authentic pubs that Brittany had to offer. The pubs were expertly handpicked. The tour literally went from village to village. More for pleasure than exercise by the sound of it, Nolwenn had chosen the inland route through gorgeous, secluded scenery. She had suggested Riwal and Dupin take time off too, and so Riwal had promptly decamped to Belle-Île with his wife and their two children for a few days. One of his sisters owned a house there that had been empty since she had moved to her husband’s hometown on Cape Cod on the American East Coast. The commissaire had had no interest in taking time off. For a start, there was no way Claire could get away from the hospital at the moment, but on top of that, holidays were not Dupin’s thing. Kadeg, Dupin’s other inspector, was sitting pretty. He had been on parental leave for two and a half months and he wouldn’t be back till July. His wife had given birth to twins in March. Anne and Conan. The inspector had bought himself one of those double prams—a monstrous contraption—and turned up at the station with it from time to time. It wasn’t unusual for him to be on his own with the children for days at a time. His wife—a martial arts teacher of kyokushin karate in Lorient, the “toughest contact martial art in the world” as Kadeg proudly pointed out every time—did a lot of traveling for classes and tournaments.
Dupin had set out at noon, bought the fish for dinner, and had a long chat with the friendly owner of the fumerie. From the car park, he had walked to the end of the pointe. Later, after this little break he was currently enjoying, he would drink a cold beer in the sun on the gorgeous terrace of Relais de la Pointe by the stunning beach at the Baie des Trépassés. This was another of his rituals; he loved sitting there. He would eat a few galettes apéritives au jambon, little rectangles of crispy, buttery pancake batter with succulent ham. He would be back home by around seven or half past seven. Claire had promised to make it back by half past eight, so he would have plenty of time to get everything ready.
He was lucky with the weather. It felt like spring was giving way to summer today. The long Breton summer that would stretch into the beginning of October, maybe even a little later. The year before, Dupin and Claire had their last swim on the thirty-first of October. It was more than twenty degrees today, a slightly salty, iodine note on the gentle breeze. The taste of the summer sea. The sun warmed your skin but didn’t burn it. “Beau et chaud,” was Le Télégramme’s forecast for the next few days. Did it get any more promising than that?
Instead of the fifteen minutes he had planned, Dupin had been lying in the grass for forty-five minutes now. He was finding it difficult to move. And this wasn’t just because of the comfortable place he was lying and the vast, spellbinding sky, it was mainly the meditative lapping of the waves breaking steadily and languidly against the cliffs beneath the hilltop. Usually so restless, the commissaire had drifted off into a blissful doze.
Suddenly he heard the insistent sound of his cell phone.
Dupin sat up and looked for his cell. It fell silent. By the time he had finally pulled it out of his trouser pocket, it was ringing again.
“Yes?” growled the commissaire.
“It’s me, boss.”
Inspector Riwal.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, boss. I just wanted to check in.”
Riwal had already checked in the day before and the day before that. And even then Dupin had thought he could hear something like a guilty conscience in his voice. Must have been because of the speed with which the inspector had hightailed it off the sinking ship.
“Everything is okay here, Riwal. How are things on the island?”
“Lovely. But I’ll come straightaway if there’s anything, please just…”
“Enjoy yourself!”
“All right, boss. Just so you know, we usually don’t get reception in the house, my sister had the landline disconnected. I’m in a pub right now, but…”
“It’s okay, Riwal. Relax. Did you try my phone just then?”
“No, why?”
“Doesn’t matter. Happy Pentecost.”
Dupin hung up. His gaze swept across the ocean. A never-ending, sparkling, shimmering expanse.
Last summer he had gone to Le Conquet with his friend Henri, the owner of Café du Port in Sainte-Marine. Henri had bought one of the famous rustic sausages that were a specialty of the nearby Île Molène, as well as pétoncles, small, nutty-flavored scallops, to make into an incredible ragout. They parked the car at the Pointe de Corsen close by and went for a stroll. They enjoyed the view: the deep blue sea, the fabled maze of islands around the Île Molène in the distance. Dupin said: “All we’re missing is a few dolphins.” “Well, there they are,” Henri replied in the most airily casual way you can imagine, pointing to the water. There were ten or fifteen dolphins. For several minutes they performed daredevil leaps and high-speed tricks. A real show. Then all of a sudden they disappeared. Dupin knew it was ridiculous, but ever since that day he always kept a particularly keen eye on the sea.
The phone was ringing again.
Within moments, the commissaire had risen to his feet with a sigh.
“Yes?”
“Georges! So glad we’ve got hold of you.”
A serious, female voice.
“We’re going to keep driving without stopping, we’ve just decided. We’re already at Laval. But we can’t get through to Claire.”
Dupin recognized the voice now. It was Claire’s mother.
“We’ll be there around nine.” There was a rustling sound. “Isn’t that right, Gustave?”
From the background there quickly came a loud “Absolutely! At the latest. If not earlier.” Dupin could hear the noise of the engine now too.
“That’s fantastic, isn’t it?” Claire’s mother said enthusiastically. “This way we’ll have the whole evening together. We’re so pleased, Georges. Can you let Claire know?”
“I’m … sure she’ll be beside herself. With absolute delight.”
“I think so too! See you soon, then, Georges.”
The conversation was over.
It took Dupin some time to compose himself.
So much for the two of them spending a quiet evening together. It would all begin today, then. Not tomorrow, Saturday, as per the original plan. Dupin had been studiously ignoring all of this. Claire’s parents were coming for a visit, his parents-in-law, effectively. For the entire Pentecost long weekend. Gustave and Hélène Lannoy. From near Fécamp in Normandy. Dupin had seen them only a handful of times since he and Claire had got back together. They would be staying with them. For three days. Dupin was pleased with the house he and Claire had moved into the year before, but a house with plenty of room came with—as it now turned out—disadvantages too. Claire’s parents were as different from each other as it is possible to be. Hélène was a yoga teacher and Claire’s father was the head of a successful law firm that he had, officially speaking, already handed over to a senior partner. It was impossible for him to let go, though. Among the few things they had in common, along with a fondness for food and drink and a profound love for Claire, was an enthusiasm for debate, with a speaking ratio of nine to one in favor of Claire’s mother. There was always plenty to talk about because of their different viewpoints, enough for several shared lifetimes together. An intriguing basis for a marriage, Dupin thought. Nevertheless, anyone would describe their marriage, without hesitation, as “extremely happy.” “That’s just how they are,” Claire had chided him. “I’m sure it’ll be lovely!”
“Damn it!” he blurted out. He’d really been looking forward to this evening. To their time alone together. “This is—”
The phone. A fourth time.
He answered again, curtly this time.
“Yes?”
“Is that Commissaire Georges Dupin?”
The voice belonged to an elderly woman. Dupin pulled himself together. The caller wasn’t to blame for the unfortunate turn his evening had taken.
“Speaking. And whom am I talking to?”
“It’s Madame Chaboseau. The wife of Docteur Pierre Chaboseau.”
Docteur Chaboseau, the doctor with the most modern practice in Concarneau. It was in a villa on Boulevard Katerine Wylie, right on the seafront. Not far from Claire and Dupin’s house. Chaboseau was a cardiologist and general practitioner and he cared a lot about social status, as did his wife. They were some of the town’s “notables,” people from long-established, well-to-do families who had shaped the fortunes of Concarneau over generations and had a network of influential contacts. Another reason Dupin knew of them was that they did not live in the villa where the practice was, they lived in the same building as Dupin’s favorite restaurant, the Amiral. Another marvelous piece of real estate in a sought-after location; the Chaboseaus owned the second and third floors of the building as well as the deluxe loft conversion.
Copyright © 2019 by Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch. Copyright © 2023 by Sorcha McDonagh
