Monsieur Pamplemousse on Probation (14 page)

‘With respect,
Monsieur
,’ Monsieur Pamplemousse found himself whispering along with him, ‘I think it was a Scotsman. A Monsieur Baird.’

‘Ssh!’ hissed the Director. ‘We must not upset Monsieur le Ministre. He is very sensitive on these matters. Just for tonight, please try and remember it was a Frenchman.’

Before Monsieur Pamplemousse had a chance to say any more his attention was drawn by a change of picture on the television screen. Perhaps sensing the importance of the occasion, Pommes Frites seemed to be taking a different course this time; one which took him over somewhat rougher terrain. Every now and then the camera did a quick 180 degree whip pan. Clearly, he was taking stock of the situation, looking over his shoulder to make absolutely certain no one was following him. Turning up the volume control revealed the sound of heavy breathing.

‘He appears to be in pursuit of someone …’ The
Director, his voice pitched low as though from fear of being overheard, echoed Monsieur Pamplemousse’s own thoughts.

He made a mental note to tighten the harness. The camera mounting must have slipped. It was now showing more of Pommes Frites’ head than it had before. The horizon, which had been near the top of the frame a few moments earlier as he moved forward with his head to the ground, was now almost level with the bottom. The moon appeared momentarily in the top right hand corner and there were occasional glimpses of twinkling lights, not unlike the star effects in a television spectacular.

It didn’t appear to be troubling Pommes Frites because at one point he looked round and if Monsieur Pamplemousse hadn’t known him better he could have sworn he was smiling. Doubtless it was distortion due to the proximity of his face to the wide angle lens.

The sight elicited a stifled cry of alarm from the Director. ‘Pamplemousse,’ he hissed, ‘what is going on?’

Monsieur Pamplemousse hastened to pour oil on troubled waters. ‘I think he is having trouble with his straps,
Monsieur
. The device is, of course, merely a prototype. I can already see possible improvements for the Mark II.’

‘If Pommes Frites continues gloating in that
singularly unpleasant way,’ hissed the Director, ‘there won’t be a Mark II. Is there nothing you can do to stop him? And another thing. I have just been asked a very pertinent question by Monsieur le Ministre. It is simply this: Why is Pommes Frites making such slow progress? The horizon has been going up and down now for several minutes, but it seems to be getting no nearer.’

‘I think possibly he is caught in a snowdrift,
Monsieur
.’

‘Be that as it may, Pamplemousse,’ Monsieur Leclercq sounded dubious, ‘but is it not possible to zoom out so that we can see more of the immediate lie of the land? I understand from Monsieur le Ministre that the technical term has to do with establishing “
le geographié”
. Also, while you are doing that would you please see if you can adjust the sound. The constant heavy breathing sounds like an obscene telephone caller of the very worst kind. It is putting the Monsieur le Ministre’s wife off her
dîner
. She is finding it difficult to do justice to the
cuisson
.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse felt like saying
baiser
Monsieur le Ministre and his
femme
, particularly his
femme
. At her age she ought to consider herself lucky. Some people were never satisfied. He recalled the time when Glandier had had a remotely operated garage door installed and for weeks afterwards
colleagues had been invited round to dinner for the express purpose of seeing it work. Then one day when he was late for work he got so impatient with the slowness of it all he endeavoured to anticipate things. Forgetting his aerial was raised, he got it entangled with one of the overhead wires and it brought the whole lot crashing down on top of his car roof. Madame Grante’s damage report had taken him several days to fill in.

Having counted up to
dix
, he was about to launch into a dissertation on the technical differences between a fixed focus and a zoom lens and the impossibility of carrying out the Director’s request with the former, when matters resolved themselves in no uncertain manner.

The horizon suddenly swam into its correct position about two-thirds up from the bottom of the frame and as the picture righted itself electronics took over. Automatically balancing the contrast between the darkness of the principal subject and the whiteness of the snow, as Pommes Frites detached himself, it revealed in sharp focus what was undeniably the rear end of a large black dog.

At the same time a shadowy figure entered the frame left uttering a cry of ‘
Asseyez-vous!
Asseyez-vous!
’

Almost immediately the dog set off at high speed. A split second later Pommes Frites sprang into
action. The effect was rather like that of an express train entering a tunnel as he followed on in hot pursuit.

Monsieur Pamplemousse stared at the scene, conscious as he did so that others all the way along the line were doubtless reacting in their different ways.

He hadn’t long to wait before the Director gave voice to his feelings.

‘Are you there, Pamplemousse?’

For a split second and out of a sense of self-preservation, Monsieur Pamplemousse toyed with the idea of saying
non
, but logic came to his rescue.

‘
Oui, Monsieur.
’

‘Did you see that?’ barked Monsieur Leclercq.

‘
Oui, Monsieur
.’ Having agreed to the first question he could hardly deny the second.

‘Pommes Frites is up to his old tricks again! Like master like hound. Really, if the atmosphere is being polluted by constant exposure to the transmission of such images, it is little wonder the world is becoming such a sorry place. Exhaust fumes from automobiles are the least of its problems. There is only one word for it and that word, Pamplemousse, is
débâcle!
We will discuss this whole matter in the morning.’

‘
Oui, Monsieur,
’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse
meekly. ‘
Bon appétit, Monsieur
.’ He nearly added
dormez
bien
, but by the sound of it he doubted if Monsieur Leclercq would be getting much in the way of sleep that night.

He had hardly replaced the receiver when the phone rang again. ‘Hard luck,’ said Trigaux. ‘You’ve got to hand it to Pommes Frites. He doesn’t miss a trick.’

That was another way of putting it.

By the time he had finished with the telephone calls the screen had gone blank, possibly because the batteries were flat, but Monsieur Pamplemousse was past caring.

He switched the television receiver off and with a distinct lack of enthusiasm set about dismantling the hook-up in his room. No doubt Pommes Frites would return from his wanderings in his own good time and there was no point in crying over spilt milk. Nor would there been any point in scolding him when he did get back for something which by then would be relegated to the past. Like most members of his species Pommes Frites lived for the moment, seizing opportunities as and when they came his way. He had only been obeying his natural instincts and memorabilia didn’t play a large part in his scheme of things.

Monsieur Pamplemousse’s reveries were broken into by a shuffling noise coming from somewhere
outside, rather as though a heavy object were being dragged along the path. Returning the video recorder to its rightful home, he crossed to the patio door and looked out.

Pommes Frites was standing outside holding a haversack in his teeth. When he saw his master he dropped it on the path in front of him and began wagging his tail. Clearly, he was of the opinion that congratulations were in order.

Monsieur Pamplemousse soon discovered why when he undid the bag and began laying the contents out on the table.

A household fork; some lengths of line, made brown in the first instance by rubbing in soil and then by use; a piece of fine netting; the odd notched peg or two, also stained brown; a hammer; a rag soaked in aniseed; a loop of wire.

All the things considered
de
rigueur
by professional poachers the world over. The fork would be used for spearing the tail of a trout and lifting it out of the water after tickling; the hammer and the pegs would be for holding the netting down; the aniseed rag would come in useful for putting any other dogs off the scent should a gamekeeper be in pursuit. The wire loop would be for snaring rabbits, or perhaps for catching hares. Taken individually, most of it was innocuous enough, but in practised hands they could become deadly weapons.

The one item Monsieur Pamplemousse would have expected to find, a knife, was missing. Because it had been used? It was an unanswerable question. But … something about the weight of the empty bag didn’t feel right. Running his hands under a layer of canvas at the bottom he came across something even better: a Swiss 9mm SIG Model P210 revolver. As he recalled, it had been made exclusively for the German government just prior to the war, mostly for use by their Border Police. He sniffed the end of the barrel. It had been fired recently. Removing the eight-round box magazine he found there was one bullet missing.

The evening suddenly took shape again and over a late meal in his room he took stock of the situation.

It was all beginning to add up. The way the other dog had immediately run off when it heard the cry of
asseyez-vous.
Training dogs to obey reverse commands had been a favourite trick of poachers when he was a boy. He knew more than one person who had got off having pleaded not guilty to the charge of possessing an animal for the express purpose of recovering game. ‘Why, when I called out for him to stop, he simply ran off! Do you call that training?’ Old habits died hard.

For the second night running sleep came hard to Monsieur Pamplemousse. The contents of the
bag, which he had distributed under his pillow for safekeeping, were unyielding and had a particular smell about them which kept him awake. Pommes Frites had no such problems. What with one thing and another he fell asleep almost as soon as he closed his eyes. Rhythmic snores filled the room.

Monsieur Pamplemousse woke early and after a shower, quickly dressed, collected all the bits and pieces from under his pillow and replaced them in the bag. He looked around for somewhere to hide it. It wouldn’t do to have a nosy room maid come across it. In the end he decided to put it in the Twingo for the time being, but first he went to the refrigerator and removed a plate on which reposed a large black
boudin
.

His comings and goings disturbed Pommes Frites, who immediately went into the other room asking to be let out.

The sky was still clear outside, the air crisp, if smelling somewhat of fertiliser. No one could call it pleasant, yet in its way was it not somehow reassuring? A reminder that come what may and despite everything, as immutable as the fact that spring followed winter, the wheels of life had to keep turning.

Pommes Frites, on the other hand, had different priorities. He hadn’t been entirely idle while he was asleep. The way he saw it was this. That his
master was apt to get into trouble, often through no fault of his own, was something he knew from long experience. Some people simply happened to be accident prone and needed protecting. In Pommes Frites view it was up to him to provide such protection and to take what measures he thought necessary from time to time.

For a brief moment or two he eyed the
boudin
. Then a sense of duty took over. First things first. Lying alongside it was the vibrator. He picked that up instead. Whenever one went off it seemed to spell trouble.

So it was that for different reasons hound and master each went their separate ways. Having concealed the bag beneath the passenger seat of the Twingo, Monsieur Pamplemousse went back to his room, while Pommes Frites, his mouth suspiciously full, disappeared to begin the difficult task of finding a suitable burial site. For a few minutes all was peace.

All of which made the explosion when it came all the more terrifying because it was so totally unexpected. It would have been mind numbing at any time, but somehow it was even more so when it was barely eight o’clock in the morning. For a moment or two it felt as though the silence which followed could have been cut with a knife.

As Monsieur Pamplemousse climbed to his feet
he heard a woman scream, then the sound of shouting and the pounding of feet. Someone began knocking frantically on his door. He made his way across the room and turned the security catch. It was Shinko.

‘Thank God you’re all right! You
are
all right?’

Monsieur Pamplemousse felt himself all over. ‘I appear to be in one piece,’ he said, ‘when it might well have been any number. That is sufficient to be thankful about for the time being.’

He removed a shard of glass from his jacket and looked around the room. There was glass everywhere. It was something else the architect hadn’t bargained on. And who could blame him? He’d been asked to design a hotel, not a nuclear bomb shelter. If no one was injured it would be something of a miracle. Perhaps the design was right after all. His room had borne the brunt. Had the building gone upwards rather than sideways it would have been another matter. Where the Twingo had been parked there was now a gaping hole.

‘How about Pommes Frites? He wasn’t …’

Monsieur Pamplemousse shook his head. ‘He wasn’t in the car, if that’s what you’re thinking. He was doing his morning rounds. Burying something, I think.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Fate plays strange tricks. My mind was occupied with other matters 
and I forgot to give him his Wellingtons. They were in the car.’

As he was speaking Pommes Frites appeared in the doorway. He was wearing his ‘hard done by’ look. Hiding evidence on his master’s behalf was one thing. Inadvertently swallowing it was something else again. Not only had he swallowed it, but the force of the explosion had been such that it practically went straight through him in one go, bypassing his digestive tracts in the process.