Dial M for Merde (32 page)

Léanne explained sheepishly that the guy Jake had assaulted with goat's cheese was a cop. That was why I'd noticed him in Bandol. He'd been keeping a (too) close eye on M and me. And I hadn't seen him earlier in the evening, because he'd only just arrived. He had come into the kitchen to report to Léanne for duty. The President's security guards had managed to dislocate one of the guy's arms and crack a couple of his ribs before they cleaned off the goat's cheese and Léanne recognized her man. By
which time, I was already chasing M across the meadows.

The security people had wanted to get the President out of the chateau straight away, but he'd refused. He wanted to stay on and perform the ceremony for his young, reformed friend Valéry. But only after giving a full round of interviews and press conferences, of course. No time like the present for boosting his ratings.

Dinner had been served – the fish had crackled on the barbecue, the family rosé had been guzzled, my Muscat sorbet had been a tongue-frazzling knockout. Only the pièce montée survived, shrouded in the wine cellar like a bride in waiting.

The minutes, the hours, had ticked by, while the President held court to the journalists, and Elodie went from extreme impatience to semi-drunken fury, and then despair. Her chances of getting married before midnight, in time to collect Valéry's inheritance, were fading away like the bubbles in a long-opened bottle of champagne.

Her dad, Jean-Marie, was there, resplendent in one of his shimmering grey suits and a salmon-pink shirt. He'd been in the second car of the President's cortège with Elodie's mum and the spokeswoman, Ludivine. But he wasn't devoting much time to his daughter. He schmoozed, tried it on with Sixtine, hovered close to the President to get in the photos and TV shots, and appeared to forget about the wedding completely.

Elodie eventually gave up all hope at a quarter to midnight. The younger and more elderly family members had already dozed off, the curé had got drunk, and Elodie was still single.

So was Valéry, of course, and he was sitting there mutely, looking as pale as the clean parts of his white shirt. He had remained steadfastly sober all evening, having long seen the
cold light of truth. He wasn't going to get married before his thirtieth birthday. He wasn't going to get his lifetime gift. Bonne Maman had won, like she always did.

Elodie was dripping tears into her sorbet at about ten to midnight when the old vache herself came over for a gloat. Or so it seemed.

‘Don't cry, my child,' she said. ‘It has been a lucky night, really. Just think, if the President had been …' She didn't even want to pronounce the deathly word. ‘It wouldn't have been a happy wedding day, would it?'

‘You seem happy enough,' Elodie retorted.

‘Happy that disaster has been avoided, yes.'

‘Huh.' Elodie seemed to assume that the old bitch was referring to the potential disaster of Valéry marrying before his thirtieth birthday and taking some of her fortune away. ‘You know, Madame,' she said, ‘I don't care about the money. I just want to get married to Valéry.' She started blubbing again, the tears streaming down into her sorbet bowl. I took it away and gave her a paper napkin. If someone else inadvertently tasted her ice cream, they were going to think I'd added way too much salt.

‘My child,' Bonne Maman said, ‘there's no need to cry. Listen to me.' She sat down beside Elodie, who kept her face jammed into the napkin. ‘There is something I want to tell you. Valéry thinks he knows everything about his grandfather's will, but he doesn't. There is a clause whereby, even after Valéry's thirtieth birthday, if I give my consent, he can still benefit from a
donation
.'

Elodie stopped crying and looked up. This was news to her.

‘Naturally,' Bonne Maman continued, ‘that consent would depend on Valéry's behaviour. He has to grow up, stop taking those stupid drugs, and act like an adult. I
would like to hope that the President's words have at last broken through that thick, bony skull of his, n'est-ce pas, Valéry?' She gave him a glare, and he flinched.

Bonne Maman turned back to Elodie. ‘As I said at the bastide, getting married might be a healthy step towards that maturity.' She smiled. ‘And now, perhaps, is the time to take that step. Let's go and ask Monsieur le Président if he is ready to marry you, shall we?'

Elodie wiped away a tear and looked suddenly tired, as if she was emerging from a troubled sleep. She took a long, deep breath.

‘No,' she said. ‘I don't think it is the right time.'

Bonne Maman and Valéry recoiled in shock. This girl was refusing to marry into their family? With the President performing the ceremony? It was an affront to history as big as the French Revolution.

‘No,' Elodie repeated calmly. ‘I thank you for this kind suggestion, Madame, but for Valéry's sake, I think we should wait until after midnight. You, Madame, must decide whether he is worthy of his grandfather's gift.'

Even I gasped in shock. Elodie, who had always seemed as money-oriented as a one-armed bandit, was willing to risk missing out on the inheritance?

Bonne Maman looked at Elodie as if she'd turned into the Virgin Mary. Her hands fluttered about in the air and a red flush coloured her pale cheeks.

‘Well,' she finally said, still gazing in awe at Elodie, ‘if we have a few minutes to spare, then I must go upstairs for a moment. I must fetch my veil from my bedroom. I would like you to wear it, if you will.'

‘It would be an honour, Madame Bonnepoire,' Elodie said.

‘You must call me Bonne Maman. And I would like to call you
tu,
if I may.'

‘Bonne Maman,' Elodie replied, and the two women held hands in a ceremony of family bonding. Now Elodie was one of them.

A stern look suddenly flashed across Bonne Maman's face, and she turned to Valéry. ‘Now
this
is the kind of girl you should have been looking for since you were eighteen,' she told him. ‘Instead of trying to impregnate all your cousins.'

I
T WAS TWO MONTHS LATER
. I was standing on the thickest carpet I'd ever felt beneath my feet, waiting nervously between Léanne and Jake in a reception room at the Elysée palace.

I'd cleaned all the mud off my best suit, Jake had actually got an almost-human haircut, and Léanne was in a ceremonial police outfit, with a knee-length skirt and a tight blue braided jacket. She was looking hot.

We were in a line facing the gilt-edged door through which the President was due to enter the room. Around us was a small crowd of guests, held back by a silk rope strung between heavy golden posts.

I knew that behind me, standing below a vast chandelier, were Elodie and Valéry, wedding rings on their fingers. Bonne Maman was with them, no doubt looking as though she owned the place. Jean-Marie, Benoit and Elodie's mother would be there too, Jean-Marie smiling with only mild irritation because he was relegated to the guest enclosure rather than being allowed to enter with the President.

‘Monsieur le Président de la République!' An usher in a
long embroidered frock coat barked out the announcement, and everyone fell silent.

The man himself entered, looking exactly as he had last time I saw him. Same suit, same tie. You didn't have time to bother with petty dress details when you were President, it seemed. Only his smile had changed. It was bigger, more firmly fixed. His dare-devil antics had been widely reported in the press – especially the way he had tackled the suspected gunman and karate-chopped the poisoned chalice out of M's hand – and his ratings had never been higher.

He stood at a lectern in front of Léanne, Jake and me and bestowed us with a look of intense affection, as if he'd just learned that we'd all voted for him.

‘Mes amis,' he said, ‘my saviours. You did a great service for France. For one of you, it was a duty. For the others, a gesture of international friendship. The Republic thanks you.'

I wondered whether
he
thanked us too. After all, it wouldn't have been the Republic getting its stomach pumped if M had given him the champagne. Not that pumping would have done much good – tests had revealed that the poison was based on the venom of a stone-fish found only in the atolls where France had done its nuclear blasting. One droplet was capable of shutting down the brain almost instantly, for ever.

‘I say that it was a duty for one of you, but of course not every one of our police officers acts with such courage and insight.' The President beamed at Léanne. ‘And not every one of our officers has such a charming smile. It is a smile that honours the Republic.' I could feel the warmth of her blush from a foot away. ‘Our police force is of course a fine body of men and women …' He paused for
effect. ‘But some parts of that body are finer than others.'

The sly bastard, I thought. He's meant to be making a public speech and he turns it into a blatant come-on. And we've all got to stand here and put up with it.

Despite myself, I felt jealous. Léanne and I were going out for dinner after the ceremony, and I had high hopes of – well – making our reunion a memorable one.

When he'd finished telling Léanne that she was a hottie, the President turned his attentions briefly to Jake and me, the two guys who'd intervened physically to stop him getting killed. He said we had proved ‘that France can always count on its allies in the United Kingdom and the United States, even though we cannot always agree to accompany them if they stray along paths that we consider unwise'.

Christ, I thought, can't they ever drop the politics? All I did was knock poisoned wine out of his hand. I didn't ask him to invade Iraq with me.

The President wrapped things up by congratulating us all on meriting France's greatest award, the Légion d'Honneur, and walked towards us, almost bouncing on the inch-deep carpet. An usher with three red-ribbonned medals materialized beside him.

‘Felicitations et merci,' the President said to Jake, pinning the medal to his chest and rubbing cheeks with him. ‘I understand that your admirable attempt to forward the cause of the French language is to receive finance from my department of Francophonie?'

‘Oui, Monsieur le Président,' Jake said, ‘and I have brought a small example of our Cajun posy.' He handed a little booklet to the President, who passed it to the usher.

Please God don't let him read that, I prayed, or Jake will be deported tonight and lose any hope of getting a single euro of French subsidy.

‘Felicitations et merci,' the President said, looking up at me from chest level. There was a pressure over my heart and then a double waft of eau de toilette as his smooth cheeks touched mine. ‘I am told that, despite lengthy interrogation, you have still not revealed the truth.'

I blanched. Were they going to carry on hassling me about M? I thought they'd given her up for lost. Even I had received no sign of life from her, apart from an anonymous e-card of a grinning sturgeon.

‘About your recipe for the fig pièce montée,' the President added. ‘The secret belongs in France, you know.' Everyone in the room laughed politely at his banter.

‘Well, in fact it was a Franco-British collaboration—' I began, but the President had already moved on to Léanne, and was taking his time pinning her medal on.

‘It is a great pleasure,' he said, clearly referring to the way she was letting him brush her left boob with his knuckles. ‘We had so little time to talk at the chateau, when you saved my life.' He leaned in even closer. ‘Why don't you have dinner with me here at the Elysée this evening? The food is quite good, you know.' He gave a little chuckle at his own witticism.

‘Merci, Monsieur le Président,' Léanne whispered, and the President grinned triumphantly.

‘However …' Léanne paused. ‘This evening I am going to be putting the spirit of your speech into action, and working on Anglo-French relations.' She turned to smile at me.

The President's face puffed with fury, and everyone in the room heard his reaction.

‘Merde!'

 

FIN