Today's Reading
Dupin, Le Menn, and Riwal had spoken briefly with the fisherman who had discovered the body while sailing back into the harbor. He had headed out shortly before midnight, just like two other coastal fishermen who were still out at sea. They had shown the fisherman the body one more time, but even now, on closer inspection, the man hadn't recognized him.
"The murderer was really unlucky," murmured Le Menn.
Riwal and Dupin looked at her questioningly. "If the body hadn't gotten caught in the lines on the buoy, it would never have been found," she clarified. "It would have been carried farther out to sea, and disappeared once and for all."
That was true.
"And it would have been presumed to be an accident. The case would have ended up with the hundreds of missing person files."
It happened again and again. People got lost at sea. For reasons that remained forever unknown and in circumstances that were never ascertained. They simply disappeared. The sea swallowed them. That's how they referred to it here—it was part of Breton life.
"Le Menn's right," confirmed Riwal. "Just pure chance. It was extremely unlikely the body would ever be discovered."
"Someone must know him."
Kadeg, Nevou, and the two gendarmes were already going door-to-door in the small village with a photo of the man.
"I'll take him along with me to Quimper now." Docteur Lafond, who was standing next to the corpse, wiped the sweat from his brow.
"No objections from me." Dupin shrugged. He was still dripping wet.
A man was strolling toward them, with both hands in his pants pockets, wearing a washed-out gray T-shirt covered with dark stains; clearly work clothing. He had large, protruding ears, and was perhaps in his midforties.
"Can we help you, monsieur?" Dupin asked.
"I'm the harbormaster," the man declared, by way of greeting. He walked past Dupin, his gaze resting on the drenched commissaire for just a moment, and headed toward the body.
"An inspector told me to take a look at him." He came to a halt right in front of the corpse.
"Ah. Just as I thought. Provost. Patric Provost. A Bellilois."
A sober declaration, with no trace of emotion. His hands still rested in his pants pockets.
"You know him?" Dupin went to stand next to him.
"He comes here once a year. From August sixth to seventh. Only then. For Old Provost's birthday. That's his uncle, Jean Provost. The whole family's from Belle-Île."
"Are you certain it's him, monsieur?"
A hint of a nod.
"And he's from Belle-Île?"
Again, a mere nod.
Dupin's gaze moved to Riwal: "Does the name Provost mean anything to you?"
Riwal, too, was practically a Bellilois. His sister, who had moved a few years ago to the East Coast of America with her husband, a native-born Bellilois, had a house on the island, which had since become Riwal's weekend and holiday home. "Absolute paradise," he called it. It was about one and a half hours from Concarneau to the ferry in Quiberon, then three-quarters of an hour for the crossing. Riwal was in love with Belle-Île, the most famous and biggest of the Breton islands. A legend.
"Not much. One of the island's long-established families, I think." The inspector shook his head.
Dupin waited. But that was it. Even Riwal himself looked disappointed. He rubbed his temples and seemed to be thinking intently.
Dupin turned back to the harbormaster. "Does he have any other relatives? Is he married?"
"No idea. Old Provost doesn't have a wife, in any case. He lives alone."
"How did Patric Provost get to Doëlan, monsieur?" Le Menn picked up the questioning.
"With his boat, like always. It's over there, at the beginning of the ria." He pointed inland.
Here, near Doëlan, the ria extended at least a kilometer inland. A deeply Breton landscape: a valley flooded thousands of years ago through the rise in sea level, a sunken riverbed that had become a meandering, narrow estuary, like a fjord. In the north of Brittany, they were called abers. To the right and left of the bay were low hills dotted with quaint old fishermen's houses; part of the village ran below along the ria, another part lay on the slope between. The estuary wasn't visible right now: it too was concealed by the dense fog.
"Provost got in last night around six," the harbormaster continued. "And he was planning to go back again this morning. He owns a large sheep farm. A stubborn old skinflint, he hates people."
A bizarre mix of information.
"Oh yes, sheep!" cried Riwal suddenly. "Of course! That's how I know the name Provost."
This excerpt ends on page 15 of the hardcover edition.
Monday we begin the book Murder in an Irish Garden by Carlene O'Connor.
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