My thought is that he was heavily involved in some sort of clandestine activity, whether espionage or smuggling, and that he used his camping trips and his family as a cover for his rendevous, and these activities were the source of his income, which appears to have been comfortable.
So my next thought is that he pushed his side of the deal too far and he thought he was making his usual contact on this outing, but his correspondents had other plans for him and his family on this final occasion.
This is the only sort of thing that makes any sense to me.
#19
I tend to believe that it is the intelligence agencies, but crime is always possible, and one can't rule anything out.
There are some odd hints in this report from a news story today:
"I saw an English car coming up the road from the village," said Mr Fillion-Robin, who has not yet been interviewed by police. "There were no other cars with it. I did not see or hear any other cars pass by that afternoon."
The house is the final property before the road climbs 3km to the car park in a national park above Lake Annecy.
Police have revealed that the Iraq-born Mr Hilli, 50, his dentist wife Ikbal, 47, his Swedish mother-in-law Suhaila al-Allaf, 74, and a cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, 45, were each shot two times in the head and that 25 bullets were fired in the attack.
Mr Fillion-Robin said: "I didn't hear any shooting. You do hear shooting from the hunters sometimes but I didn't hear anything that afternoon. Perhaps they had a silencer."
The builder, who lives in a nearby village, said it was "bizarre" for the family to have gone to the car park. "It is not the sort of place that families with young children or older people would go to," he said.
There is something odd about that car park in the high area of the nature reserve, and the witness is not saying exactly what it is.