Monsieur Pamplemousse on Probation (12 page)

‘I have them on the desk in front of me,’ continued Monsieur Leclercq. ‘A series of photographs the like of which I haven’t seen for a long time and trust I never shall again. I haven’t been through them all, but funnily enough they are slightly reminiscent of the ones taken of you when you were in Boulogne; the same shadowy figure crouched over his victim, only this time he is wearing a half-opened dressing gown.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse suddenly came awake. It wasn’t possible!

‘They could be stills taken from an early Hollywood movie where the evil mill owner is about to work his wicked will on one of the hired hands,’ continued Monsieur Leclercq. ‘The girl in the pictures does indeed bear a strong resemblance to Miss Lillian Gish in one of her more distraught moods, as well she might be seeing her assailant is standing over her, camera at the ready, forcing what looks suspiciously like a large cognac down
her throat. Clearly it must have been laced with a noxious substance because the next picture shows her in a state of collapse.’

A large lump of
beurre
fell from Monsieur Pamplemousse’s knife and landed on his pyjamas where it lay unregarded.

‘
Monsieur
, I do not know where those pictures came from, but …’

‘No “buts”, Pamplemousse. The lack of “buts” is precisely why I am telephoning you. You will find this hard to believe, I know, but I have checked the details on the heading of the paper. The time of origin was 04.53, and the place … I trust you are sitting comfortably … I have checked the number in
Le Guide
, and the place of origin is Dulac, where you are at this present moment!’

Monsieur Pamplemousse was doing more than sitting comfortably; he was sprawled out in a state of considerable shock. As he struggled to his feet his breakfast tray went flying.

‘
Merde
!’

‘Pamplemousse! Are you all right?’

‘It is nothing,
Monsieur
!’

‘I thought I heard the sound of a struggle … a cry of “
Merde!
” from somewhere close at hand …’

Monsieur Pamplemousse retrieved the napkin and began wiping himself down. ‘
Monsieur
, would it be possible to fax me a copy?’

The Director sucked in his breath. ‘I wonder if that is wise, Aristide. There must be laws covering the transmission of pornographic material. It is one thing to receive such items – especially when, as you rightly say, they were unsolicited. It is another matter entirely to send it. Some of the pictures are much worse than others.
Par exemple
, in the fourth of the series the villain, his eyes closed in ecstasy, has his hand up the young girl’s dress.’

‘
Monsieur,
I have an even better idea.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse clutched at the nearest available straw. ‘Why don’t you bundle everything together and mail it to me. I will investigate the matter for you at this end …’ Even to his own ears it sounded a trifle suspect.

‘You are a good man, Pamplemousse …’ said the Director. ‘I appreciate your solicitude on my behalf, but …’ he broke off, and when he next spoke it was in an entirely different tone of voice. Monsieur Pamplemousse’s heart sank.

‘Pamplemousse, I have in front of me a fifth picture which shows a back view of the perverted miscreant holding aloft an object of some kind. I hesitate to think what it can be. He has been joined by a dog … a dog who, even allowing for the degradations of the facsimile system, looks remarkably like Pommes Frites …’

Monsieur Pamplemousse took a deep breath. It
was now or never. ‘It
is
Pommes Frites,
Monsieur
.’

He held the receiver away from his ear for a moment or two as an explosion at the other end was followed by a stream of verbiage.

‘
Pardon, Monsieur
…’ he broke in at last. ‘I repeat, I do not know who sent them to you or who took them in the first place. I most certainly didn’t.’

‘I can see that,’ barked the Director. ‘It is patently obvious you were far too busy on your own account.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,
Monsieur
.’

‘You know perfectly well what I mean, Pamplemousse. What is worse, the girl is of an age when she could be your own daughter.’

‘Or yours,
Monsieur
,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse dryly.

But Monsieur Leclercq refused to rise to the bait. ‘I am glad to be getting through to you at long last, Pamplemousse,’ he growled. ‘This kind of behaviour is unseemly enough in a twenty-year-old, but in one of your mature years it defies description.

‘There is yet another picture of Pommes Frites, clearly taking great delight in egging you on, as seems to be his wont. I don’t wonder your colleagues in the
Sûreté
chose to give him to you as a leaving present. His years in the vice squad were clearly not wasted. You are two of a kind.’

‘I can explain everything,
Monsieur
. The young lady was cold. She was unsuitably dressed for the
inclement weather. I was merely giving her a glass of cognac to warm her up as it were …’

‘Warm her up for what, Pamplemousse?’ asked the Director coldly. ‘That is the question.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse let the remark pass. ‘I have no idea what caused her to faint. She was having trouble with her vibrator.’

‘Her
vibrator
?’ repeated the Director.

‘It is an electronic device,
Monsieur
. When it is operated it emits a vibration and the girl comes … or rather she goes … In this particular instance it seemed to have stuck in the “on” position for some reason …’ Aware of the sound of heavy breathing on the line, Monsieur Pamplemousse allowed his voice to trail away.

‘Pamplemousse,’ barked the Director, ‘I am not entirely naive. I do not live on another planet. I know what a vibrator is.’

‘In that case,
Monsieur
, and since the device had stuck in the “on” mode you will understand my position and why the third picture shows me looking for it. I wished to put the poor girl out of her misery.’

‘A likely story, Pamplemousse!’ barked the Director. ‘It is not the construction most readers of
Paris Match
would put on it. The word “groping” springs to mind.’

‘Evil is in the eye of the beholder,
Monsieur
,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse virtuously. ‘If anyone
chooses to think differently I shall simply say I couldn’t help myself. I was in love. There was a case only recently. It was in all the
journaux
. The judge was most sympathetic to the poor
homme
who was the subject of the accusation made in the name of Political Correctness.’

‘And were you?’ barked the Director.

Monsieur Pamplemousse hesitated. It struck him that it might be as well to bear in mind that he was, after all, talking of Monsieur Leclercq’s daughter.

‘In love,
Monsieur
? Certainly not.’

Monsieur Leclercq gave a deep sigh. ‘There are times, Pamplemousse, when you stretch my powers of credulity to the limit.’

‘
Monsieur
, I think you are doing the young lady less than justice. At present she is in catering, but there has been talk of her entering a nunnery …’

‘Not before time!’ barked the Director. ‘Really, Pamplemousse, you seem to have a fetish for ecclesiastics. Let us hope and pray the
Catholic Herald
doesn’t get to hear of it. They will have a field day.’

Cupping the receiver under his chin, Monsieur Pamplemousse removed the butter pat from his pyjama trousers, applied it to a slice of walnut bread, and allowed Monsieur Leclercq’s voice to drone on. It had to be someone from inside the hotel. Someone who was able to make use of all the facilities. Furthermore,
it had to be someone who knew who he was and where he had come from. Someone who had access to confidential information. Someone who could come and go as they pleased without it being queried.

‘I totally fail to understand how you allowed it to happen, Pamplemousse.’

‘At the time,
Monsieur
, I took what in retrospect I realise must have been a flash gun for lightning. A passing storm …’

For a second or two it sounded as though the Director’s office was itself the epicentre of a storm. Monsieur Pamplemousse held the telephone receiver away from his head until it had passed.

He couldn’t help thinking that one way and another it had been a very unsatisfactory conversation all round. He hadn’t said any of the things he’d planned to say, neither had the Director uttered one word on the subject of the Twingo.

Driving into Pouligny brought one consolation. It had stopped snowing. The sun was out and with it came a change in the atmosphere.

Even Mlle Pichot seemed genuinely pleased to see him when he called in at her office on the off-chance that she might be there.

After a moment’s hesitation he revealed the purpose of his visit. ‘What can you tell me about the girl, Claude? The one I presented the prize to.’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I have my reasons.’

‘She is no longer my responsibility …’ Mlle Pichot gave a shrug. ‘What is it you wish to know?’

‘I am interested in her family background. Where she is from. That kind of thing. It is all perfectly honourable, I assure you.’

‘She is not in trouble?’

‘Rather the reverse. I may have some good news for her.’

‘Do you not know?’

‘Should I?’

‘I can only suggest you take a walk through the
cimetière
. It is all there, written in stone.’

‘It is the second time this morning I have been told that.’

Mlle Pichot gave another shrug. ‘Pouligny is a small village. There are few secrets, except perhaps from those who are most concerned. If you do nothing else you could perhaps be instrumental in righting a few wrongs.’

‘Is it possible … may I suggest we make up over another Suze?’

This time it was Mlle Pichot who hesitated. ‘Why not? Life is too short to quarrel.’

Some thirty minutes later, armed with the information Honoré Pichot had given him and fortified by the Suze, Monsieur Pamplemousse
made straight for the cemetery. He pushed open the wrought-iron gates in the high stone surrounding wall and went inside. Despite the weather there were a few tracks in the snow where others had been there before him to place flowers or pay their respects to the dead. Otherwise, not surprisingly, it was deserted.

He came across the Dulac family grave almost at once. It would have been hard to miss it. Relatively new and well cared for, it occupied a place in what must at one time have been a central path. Sheltered from the weather by a wall on three sides and a glass roof, protected in front by an iron grille, it was there for all to see and admire. Beyond it stood a group of stone urns filled with artificial flowers. Beside each of them lay a book carved out of white marble, all with an appropriate text in memory of various relatives down through the ages. Some had a simple head and shoulders reproduction of a likeness set in an oval frame; others a more elaborate scene showing a person going about their daily task. Along the back wall, to either side of a central display of flowers taller than the rest, inlaid in gold on black marble, there was a list of names and dates.

Monsieur Pamplemousse took out his notebook and while Pommes Frites waited patiently by his side began with Prosper Dulac … Born 1864 died 1929.

Then came Gaston, born 1904 died 1975. André had been born in 1948.

After he had finished with the Dulac family grave he made his way on down the path to a war memorial at the back of the cemetery and stood for a moment or two in silence as he read the names. As always a feeling of sadness came over him. There was the inevitable list of all those who had fallen at an early age during the carnage of the First World War. Many of them he remembered from stories he had been told as a boy. Beneath it there was a smaller list of those who had given their lives in the Second World War. The names were all too familiar.

After France was overrun, a million-and-a-half French soldiers had been packed off to Germany. Ostensibly as prisoners, but in reality to work as slave labour. Hardly a family in the occupied zone had remained unaffected. His own family had lost a favourite member: Uncle Didier, who by an unhappy twist of fate had made his home on the wrong side of the makeshift border just prior to the war. He, too, went off and was never heard of again.

Then, on 11th November 1942, following the Allied successes in North Africa, the Wehrmacht had crossed the demarcation line dividing the occupied zone from the so-called free zone, the Vichy area, where he’d been born and brought up, and it had been the turn of the South.

It was then, fearing for their son’s life and believing that it was easier to stay clear of the authorities in the big city than it was in the country where everyone knew what was going on, his parents had packed him off to Paris to live with his aunt Hortense, and his childhood, such as it had been, had come to an end.

Alongside the main memorial there was a tiny patio devoted to those who had died as members of the Resistance. The wall at the back had small blocks of white stone let into it at intervals, each with the name of a person who had been killed, and in the centre there was a simple stone bench which someone had swept clear of snow.

Most of the blocks bore a date in June 1944 when 3000 men from the Underground Movement, having assembled at a point south of Pouillac, held the German Army at bay for several days. It happened after he had left the area, but he remembered hearing about it at the time and afterwards reading about it. Revenge had been swift and bloody – twenty-seven civilians massacred in cold blood. Running his eye along the stones Monsieur Pamplemousse saw the name Dulac carved on one of them. He compared it with his list. It was from what he had come to think of as the main branch of the family. According to Honoré the other side had not exactly been unwelcoming to the occupying forces. Perhaps the
episode had been another turning of the knife in the wound.

The second family grave was where Honoré had said it would be, tucked away in a little used corner of the cemetery and open to the elements. Ill-tended. The name Claude went all the way through.