The Killing Tide: A Brittany Mystery by Jean-Luc Bannalec

Author:Jean-Luc Bannalec [Bannalec, Jean-Luc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781250173386
Google: 3FtmxAEACAAJ
Amazon: B07S8K79C2
Goodreads: 45046770
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2020-02-04T06:00:00+00:00

* * *

Dupin already had his phone to his ear, about to call Claire, when it rang. He was almost at his car at last.

“Extraordinary news, boss!” Riwal burst out. “Guess who cut the professor’s hair?” Riwal left a rhetorical pause, before continuing excitedly. “Yan Lapal.”

Yet another pause.

“The hairdresser with the boat, who also cut the hair of Darot and Kerkrom. His salon is in Camaret. Professor Lapointe went there. Lapal cut the hair of all three.”

“Really?”

The hairdresser had a rock-solid alibi, Kadeg had told him, at least for last night.

“That’s just a stone’s throw from the new murder scene. And it would only take him five minutes from his house to get to his boat in Camaret harbor, I’ve checked on the map. From there he could get anywhere within an hour. Including the islands.”

It was all true. And it was a funny coincidence that all three had used him. But there was no chance of it being him—and there was no reason to think differently—if you continued to assume there was just one killer, which the pathologist also considered probable.

“Think it over. A hairdresser who could get in his boat to the most isolated areas, and commit murder undisturbed. Nobody would suspect him.”

That applied not just to the hairdresser but also to their serial killer. Dupin should have known that.

“Anything else, Riwal?”

“I’ve spoken to a few men from the island who enjoy spending time on the quays. Sitting in the bars, watching the world go by, the boats coming and going,” Riwal said.

“And?”

“They say that recently Kerkrom spent more time out at sea than normal. That she used to take one day off a week but hadn’t done so for a while.”

“We need to ask around in Douarnenez harbor. Maybe they could—”

“Already done that. One of Madame Gochat’s staff has been told to send us a list of which days Céline Kerkrom brought her catch to auction, from March on. That’s all that’s on record, not whether or not she docked in Douarnenez harbor. But even so.”

“Excellent, Riwal.”

Dupin should have thought of that himself, first thing that morning.

“She also fished to order for certain restaurants, sea bass and lieus jaunes. On those days, obviously, she wasn’t registered at the auction. Their best watcher, in any case, was the little boy you spoke to this morning at the cholera cemetery, boss, and he often hangs about the harbor. He knows the fisherfolk well. And even he said that recently Kerkrom was at sea most of the time. Darot too. And occasionally both of them in the same boat.”

“Which?”

“Either. Darot’s and Kerkrom’s.”

“How often?”

“Sometimes, was what he said. I couldn’t get him to be any more exact.”

“And why did they go out together? Did he say anything about that?”

“He thought they were rod fishing together. But he didn’t know.”

“Did the two of them tell him that—that they were line fishing?”

“No, it was just what he thought.”

“And did he add where exactly they went to?”

Another one of the crucial questions.

“No.” Dupin turned a narrow corner.

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