Monsieur Pamplemousse on Probation (4 page)

And in Roanne it would be goodbye Twingo. Without feeling in any way disloyal, he had to admit to rather more than a passing pang of regret. When his old car finally reached retirement age the present one would be high on his list of possible replacements. Pommes Frites clearly approved of it. He was fast asleep again, a look of bliss on his face. One could wish for no better recommendation.

The message from the Director was precise and,
as was his wont, couched in terms he might well have used had he been addressing a congenital idiot: ‘Leave the car in the parking area in the Place des Promenades Populle near the
gare
. If you can find a suitable space where the rear end is facing a brick wall, so much the better. I suggest you try and find a spot near to where I am told there is the statue erected to the poor. Make sure the engine is immobilised, the doors are locked, and that you are not overlooked, then leave the keys in the exhaust pipe, making sure they are out of sight. Above all, remember,
anonymat
must be maintained at all costs.’

Given that the note was written in Monsieur Leclercq’s own hand, he could have said it all in his office, or even over the phone the night before. Perhaps Doucette was right. It bore all the hallmarks of hasty planning. He wondered what would have happened had he still been in Boulogne. And why so much cloak and dagger stuff about the simple act of delivering a new car?

Monsieur Pamplemousse tried to shrug the whole thing off, but he was conscious of a growing sense of unease the further south he went.

Perhaps it was the thought of going back to the scene of his childhood; something he’d always avoided doing. Life had been hard when he was a boy and part of him had no wish to return. It was
no wonder mass emigration to Paris had helped the capital earn its reputation for being the Auvergne’s largest city.

That apart, there had been the war. It was impossible to explain to anyone who hadn’t experienced it what it had been like; it had brought out the best and the worst in people, but after a fashion life had gone on. Most people had no wish to be heroes or to try and change the course of history. They were content to let things take their course, and who could blame them?

Another thing about the present situation. It was
Le Guide’s
policy not to have their Inspectors report on establishments too close to their home territory in case they were recognised. Not many people connected his present job with the years he had spent in the
Sûreté
, but there was always the risk. The last time he had been within a hundred kilometres of the area was when he’d spend a few days in Vichy with the American, Mrs Van Dorman. That, too, had been at the behest of the Director and look how it had ended up. She’d been lucky to escape the electric chair.

Not that many people would remember him, of course. He’d been away too long.

Soon after entering the Soanne Valley, Mâcon came into view, the flat pink-tiled roofs of the houses marking the transition between north and south.
Then a series of
panneaux marrons
in between trees thick with mistletoe, displayed signs welcoming visitors to Beaujolais, its
monts
and its
vignobles
, and his mood began to oscillate again as memories of happier times came flooding back.

There had been good things, too. Nature compensated for its shortcomings in other directions. Spring was always late arriving, but when it did there were wild daffodils in profusion, snowdrops, celandines and cowslips, and they had multiplied still further since it had become against the law to pick them. Violets flowered alongside lingering pockets of snow heralding the bounties to come; fungi of all kinds, and the first of the
fraises du bois
.

Then summer would arrive with a rush and there would be blue scabious in amongst the cow parsley. There was wildlife galore: marmot, mountain sheep, deer, boar roaming free, and cattle everywhere. Food was basic, but it was plentiful. The Director was right; it had a lot to offer.

Coming off the Autoroute de Soleil just before the main Péage de Villefranche, he drove out of town on the D38 and, following the signs for Roanne, passed a turning for the Route de Beaujolais.

Beaujolais!
He’d been practically weaned on it, but in his day it had been quaffed out of pots drawn from the cask, not racked and re-racked within an inch of its life so that it could be bottled and
despatched at speed to the four corners of the world in order that people could pronounce on what was left of its virtues.

Later in the year the same sign would be the signal for the more intrepid to seek out the little village of Vaux-en-Beaujolais, setting for Chevallier’s bestselling political satire,
Clochemerle
. Over the years its
pissoir
had become famous; a shrine to the power of marketing
Beaujolais Nouveau
. He told himself not to be grumpy. If that was what gave people pleasure and made others prosper, then so be it. At least there were signs of a renaissance;
vignerons
who were working hard to raise the level again.

Once clear of Villefranche, the road began to climb steadily, heading towards the foothills of the Auvergne. On large-scale maps it showed up as a vast area of nothingness;
la France profonde
, the unexplored region. A day’s travel away from home had always been an adventure into the unknown.

The smaller-scale maps contained within the pages of
Le Guide
revealed for the most part a gastronomic wilderness without so much as a single Bar Stool,
Le Guide’
s symbol for somewhere to stop for lunch. The fact that it was surrounded on all sides by restaurants of note – Roanne, where he was heading, had Troisgros; Collonges-au-Mont-d’Or outside Lyon had Bocuse; and the Rhône Valley to
the east, full of riches – only served to emphasise the dearth of good restaurants.

Now that Pierre Gagnaire in St Étienne had gone, closed down and moved to Paris, like so many before him, the one shining light, the single beacon shining in the wilderness, was Dulac, and by the sound of it even he was having his troubles.

Monsieur Pamplemousse was so busy with his thoughts he very nearly collided with another car at a lethal road junction just after Les Olmes, where the D38 joined the N7. Gesticulations were exchanged. The Director wouldn’t have been pleased. To say that it was all changed since he was last there would have gone down like a lead balloon.

Another 60km. Say, three quarters of an hour. He checked the time again. The clock said 13.30. He would be just about right.

After St Symphorien he hit the main road into the city and fast traffic started to build up as if from nowhere. As always, everyone else was in a tearing hurry and seemed to know exactly where they were going. Working on the theory that since Roanne’s most famous restaurant was right opposite the
gare
, and as with most three Stock Pot establishments probably even better signposted than anything else in the town, and since the Director had told him the Place des Promenades Populle was right by the railroad
station, he couldn’t go far wrong if he aimed for Troisgros.

His theory worked. Ten minutes later and he was circumnavigating a large tree-lined park, the perimeter of which was lined with cars. The Director’s instruction to seek out a parking bay near a wall suddenly seemed optimistic. It looked as though he would be lucky to find anywhere at all to park. Moreover, there didn’t seem much in the way of activity, just a few odd cars crawling round the inner road, those at the wheel looking in much the same pessimistic state of mind as he was.

Checking the nearest pay and display machine, the Director’s reasoning that he should arrive soon after 14.00 became clear. The list of charges showed that parking was free between the hours of 12.00 and 14.00. Before and after that it rose from a minimum of 1Fr every fifteen minutes to a maximum of l0Fr for nine hours. Clearly most people either overstayed their lunch time and risked a fine, or they paid their full whack at the start of the day.

Monsieur Pamplemousse’s heart sank. There had been no mention in the Director’s note about what to do in the event that he couldn’t find anywhere to leave the Twingo. Clearly such a possibility hadn’t crossed Monsieur Leclercq’s mind. Thus spoke the man who had his own personal parking space at the office.

Driving round the perimeter of the Promenades Populle for a second time, Monsieur Pamplemousse was almost tempted to give it up as a bad job when he spotted a Renault Espace backing out from behind a building. Ignoring an arrow indicating exit only, he shot into the vacant space, just beating another driver who’d had his eyes on it too.

Four elderly ladies seated on a concrete bench broke off from their gossiping to watch. Clearly, had there been an argument they would have been only too pleased to join in.

Pommes Frites stirred in his sleep as the sound of the engine died away and he heard his master’s door open and shut. Not having eaten since breakfast, he had a large hole in his stomach; a hole which had featured in a particularly good dream he’d been having; a dream in which bones played a major part; bones of all shapes, sizes and from a variety of sources. A dark patch on the rear seat bore mute testimony to their combined tastiness. (Fortunately it was covered in washable velour material since, although it was available in a wide range of colours, saliva grey was not among those listed.)

Torn between seeing what was going on outside the car and staying put for a little while longer, Pommes Frites chose the latter course and closed his eyes again.

His bliss was short-lived, for almost at once he
was brought to his feet by the peremptory voice barking out orders again. Not once, but several times in quick succession: ‘STAND CLEAR. SYSTEM ARMED’ followed by ‘SYSTEM DISARMED’, then ‘SYSTEM ARMED’. It was all very confusing and for a few seconds he was up and down like the proverbial yo-yo.

During the course of one of his upward leaps, he happened to glance through the rear window and caught sight of his master. For some reason best known to himself Monsieur Pamplemousse was doing almost exactly the same thing; jumping up and down like a yo-yo. The only difference between the two of them was that he, Pommes Frites, was doing his best to obey orders, whereas his master appeared to be taking the opposite line. He was sucking his fingers and shouting
merde
at the top of his voice.

Not for the first time, Pommes Frites feared for his master’s sanity. He was certainly very red in the face.

However, as is so often the case in life, the truth of the matter was much simpler. Monsieur Pamplemousse had discovered the hard way that the Twingo’s exhaust pipe was smaller by at least one centimetre than the sum total of its keys plus the security triggering device. And since both were encumbered by a large rubber ball on the end of a
chain, a ball which as far as he could see served no purpose whatsoever, what should have been a simple operation of pushing them up the exhaust pipe was rendered impossible.

And even if he had been able to carry out the task, the end of the pipe had a bend in it so that it faced downwards; something the Director, who wasn’t noted for being mechanically minded, had clearly overlooked. (So unmechanically minded was Monsieur Leclercq, rumour had it that when his wife had asked him to check the oil in her Volkswagen, he’d telephoned the police to report the engine was missing. But since it was one of Glandier’s stories and he had embroidered it still further by going on to say that luckily there had been a spare in the boot, the story had been taken with a large pinch of salt by the rest of the staff, although it went down well at the annual get-together.)

As Pommes Frites braced himself for his third journey into space, he felt a sudden jolt and the command ‘STAND CLEAR’ was repeated. It was followed by the high-pitched sound of a siren programmed to change its note every ten seconds or so.

Pommes Frites’ literary bent didn’t really extend much beyond recognising certain street signs like
CHIENS INTERDIT
(an example of which he was to come across all too soon, much to his master’s dismay) and
it certainly wasn’t sufficiently advanced to allow him the luxury of following a series of illustrations. Had it been, a brief glance in the instruction manual would have made everything abundantly clear. Under a section headed ‘Security’ he would have come across the words: ‘When a more serious aggressive impact occurs (and here the writer forebore to give as an example a well-directed kick making contact with a rear tyre) the voice message will be followed by a full circle of five distinctive and different siren tones – a powerful 120 decibels – to attract attention.’

It was certainly doing that. A fifth lady had already joined those on the bench, and a small crowd of passers-by had begun to collect on the pavement alongside the park. As with traffic entering the town, they seemed to be appearing as if from nowhere and more were emerging by the second from a café on the far side of the road.

An unmarked car drew up and two men in uniform climbed out. As they drew near, Monsieur Pamplemousse stopped massaging his big toe and tried to pull himself together.

‘It is nothing,’ he said, bending down to demonstrate his problem. ‘I have burnt my fingers on the exhaust pipe, that is all.’

For the most part the crowd had been standing by in silence, awaiting developments, but then he heard some unmistakably English voices.

‘Poor old thing … look at him.’

‘Ought not to be allowed …’

‘Bloody frogs!’ The latter delivered in a tone of voice implying that at another time, in another place, a lynching party might be the order of the day.

Monsieur Pamplemousse glanced up in gratitude. How typical of the British! Defenders of the Faith. Champions of the underdog. Long may they live. What would the world do without them?

Meeting with a stony stare, he looked back over his shoulder and gave a start. His mind having been temporarily elsewhere, what he had taken to be the alarm system entering into a musical mode, rather more
agitato
than
andante con moto
, and far exceeding in decibels anything that had gone before was, in fact, the voice of woe
in extremis
and it was coming from inside the car.