Monsieur Pamplemousse on Probation (8 page)

‘There is something I wish to ask you,
Monsieur
,’ whispered the girl. ‘Something I do not quite understand. Perhaps if you have a moment before you leave I could talk with you …’

‘Oh, Glandier, where are you now?’ thought Monsieur Pamplemousse. What was it he always said? ‘There’s one in every class. Beware of the ones who ask to stay behind because they haven’t understood something.’ A man of many parts, for a brief period in his life Glandier had been a schoolteacher, but unable to stand the pace, he had resigned before being fired.

He looked at the throng of eager faces surrounding him. With their long, flowing hair, short skirts and
hobnailed boots they made him feel old. ‘Later, perhaps …’ he began, ‘when things have quietened down.’

All at once he felt the girl give a quick tremor. It happened not once, but several times in quick succession until it felt as though her whole body was starting to vibrate.

She snatched her hand away. ‘I must go.’

‘Please, do not misunderstand me …’ For a moment he thought it must be something he’d said.

‘No … no … I will explain later.’

Déjeuner
was a muted affair. It might just as well have taken place in the woodshed had it still been there. Mlle Pichot sat at one end of a long table, he sat at the other, and the few staff who had stayed the course occupied the spaces in between. It had all the astringency but none of the after-effects of the Suze he had partaken of earlier in the morning, and as soon as it was decently possible to, he made his excuses and left. At least this time she couldn’t run home and tell her mother.

He half expected to find the reporter, if indeed it had been a reporter and not someone writing the whole thing up for the school magazine, waiting for him outside, but he seemed to have disappeared.

Back at the hotel, having first checked to make sure his room had been cleaned and the bed made, he hung the DO NOT DISTURB outside the door,
locked it, and let Pommes Frites in through the French windows.

He sat for a moment or two on the leather sofa recovering from his ordeal and trying to account for the strange behaviour of the girl. One thing was for sure, Honoré or no Honoré, he wouldn’t be going anywhere near his old school again in a hurry, nor did he expect to be invited. She hadn’t mentioned the possibility of another meeting when they said goodbye, so he felt fairly safe on that score. The Director was right. From now on he would be keeping a low profile.

As for Claude, the last he’d seen of her had been as he drove out of the village. She had been talking to someone outside the Hôtel du Commerce. He couldn’t be sure, for there was no sign of the dog and the other person had his back to him, but it looked like the man he’d seen trudging through the snow on his way to the hotel the previous afternoon. For a second he had been tempted to stop, but the girl had pointedly looked the other way. Once more he wondered if it was something he had said – or perhaps hadn’t said. It was impossible to say. Clearly, she hadn’t wished to be seen with him.

The fact that he’d been at Dulac for the best part of a day without even beginning to make a report caused him to reach for
Le Guide’
s case and open it up.

When it was first conceived by the founder,
Monsieur Hippolyte Duval, it had been a comparatively simple affair containing a supply of emergency rations, a tin opener, bandages and a bottle of iodine. Monsieur Duval didn’t believe in spoiling himself, although following the invention of the pneumatic bicycle tyre, he had seen fit to add a puncture outfit and a spare inner tube.

It was Monsieur Leclercq who had brought about the greatest changes. First the addition of a pair of Leitz Trinovid binoculars, then a Leica R4 and a selection of lenses so that staff could supply photographic records of their travels. The year before, following an incident when he had been out riding in the Forêt de Fontainbleu and his horse had got a stone in one of its hooves, it had been a top of the range Victorinox Champ Swiss Army knife. And now, with the latest additions: a 650X IBM laptop word processor and a Nikon digital camera, they were ready to enter the twenty-first century.

Reports could be despatched in double quick time via a modem and the nearest telephone line. Only thus, maintained Monsieur Leclercq, could they hope to keep ahead of their rivals. Gastronomy had become a cut-throat business. He could see the day coming when the Director would have route planners installed and Global Positioning so that he could keep track of all the staff. None of them would be safe then.

But reports would always have to be filed and edited and entered, and he still preferred the tried and tested method of notepad and pen. At least they didn’t require constant recharging. The notebook he kept concealed in the special pocket Doucette had sewn into his right trouser leg was like an old and trusted friend and after switching on the laptop and programming in the appropriate spreadsheet, it was to his notebook he turned first of all before entering in the details.

The orange, raspberry and yoghurt cocktail at the start of his
petit déjeuner
had been a veritable symphony of tastes; a fitting prelude to all that followed: a basket of home-made croissants and brioche fresh from the oven, plates of local ham and cheese – both St-Nectaire and Fourme d’Ambert; another basket containing several types of bread, a dish of
beurre d’Échiré.
A chocolate and cream concoction. The
café
had been accompanied by cold milk as requested. Using
Le Guide’
s system of awarding points for each item, the score steadily mounted until it reached maximum.

He checked the refrigerator. It had been restocked, the glasses replaced; likewise an inspection of the bathroom showed that everything was in order, towels renewed; even the used tablets of soap had been removed and replaced with new ones.

Another reading of the hotel brochure confirmed
his first impressions. Everything seemed to have been thought of. If technical facilities were the prime requirement, Dulac was very definitely Three Stock Pots plus. It was on the cutting edge of scientific progress. State of the art video conference facilities ensured that visitors could be connected to the outside world by means of ISDN fast telephone lines. A ‘rollabout’ system was available for those who needed to conduct their business from their room. The ISDN system could also compress signals enabling them to be sent by ordinary telephone line. If necessary, sound and pictures could be transmitted globally via satellite. It all sounded very wonderful, but most of it was Greek to him. The Director, always ready to embrace the new, would have been in his element.

Security, too, seemed to have a high priority. An optional extra was video in-car security (ask at the main desk for it to be activated). Any attempt at a break-in and a picture of the intruder would automatically appear on both the television screen in the room and on the hotel’s video system. Monsieur Pamplemousse made a mental note to avoid that at all costs. Pommes Frites would not be pleased.

Michelin rated Dulac highly. And no wonder, it was the kind of thing they went for in a big way. He wondered if they, too, had received reports of the recent hiccups. The quote from Gault Millau was
the usual tongue in cheek affair, although clearly the gastronomic marriage of classic Auvergne dishes coupled with Japanese cuisine exercised them.

His preliminary work completed, Monsieur Pamplemousse decided to explore the ‘Fitness Management Centre’, and it was there he discovered where everybody went to during the daytime. It was to the world of keep fit what stationery ‘wallets’ were to old-fashioned envelopes; everything was on the cutting edge of advanced thinking.

The room was a sea of Bermuda shorts, Spandex and leotards.
Derrières
and bulging thighs loomed large everywhere he looked. People who wouldn’t normally dream of mounting a flight of stairs when they could take a lift or an escalator were sweating it out on climbers, treadmills and cycling machines. The air was alive to the sound of whirring pedals, bouncing medicine balls and vibrating stomach belts.

There were ski machines and workout stations of a complexity he’d never even dreamt of: an electromechanical engineer’s paradise. All were equipped with automatic pulse control and a polar heart rate transmitter conveying a stream of information to a personal printout device.

A notice on one of the walls said ‘Strength Through Joy’. Where had he heard that before? There wasn’t much joy on the faces of those taking
part. Agony was writ large on many of them. Gold bangles and dangling crosses which, under other circumstances, might well have sparkled, gleamed dully in the overhead lights. Above each machine there was a miniature television camera, relaying a picture to a screen in front of the users. Little wonder most of them had their eyes closed. It was not a pretty sight.

Being temporarily without both a multicoloured sweatband and his Doc Martens and feeling in need of a drink, Monsieur Pamplemousse pretended he’d opened the wrong door, backed away and closed it behind him. He needn’t have bothered. Nobody noticed.

It was much the same when he entered the bar. He suddenly felt a foreigner in his own country.

The barman was making a dry martini. It was one up on the Director’s favourite method of simply showing the label on a bottle of vermouth to the glass. Having rinsed the inside of a chilled cocktail glass with vermouth, he poured the liquid back into the bottle, filled the glass with gin, then gave a slice of lemon peel a quick twist, skin side down so that the resultant fine spray covered the surface, and dropped it in.

Monsieur Pamplemousse ordered a Suze and turned his attention to the conversation going on around him.

‘Hey, take a look at this stemware.’

‘Reidel.’ The speaker held his glass up to the light.

The newly arrived Americans were discussing their itinerary over champagne. From the conversation it sounded as though they had only landed that morning and yet in their white trainers and loose-fitting Hawaiian shirts they already looked completely at home. He couldn’t help but admire their self-confidence. For the second time that morning he found himself feeling overdressed as he tuned in to the snatches of conversation.

‘Have you guys worked out where we’re headed for tomorrow?’

They were on a gastronomic tour and there were problems with the itinerary. If L’Espérance at Vezeley was closed on Tuesdays and Pic in Valence was closed on Wednesday, how about reversing things and making it Bocuse at Collonges-au-Mont-d’Or outside Lyon and Bernard Loiseau at the Côte d’Or in Saulieu instead? They were both open all the year round.

‘Yeah, but will the boss men be there?’

Without wishing to interfere, they had his sympathy. How often had he pored over similar itineraries on behalf of
Le Guide
? Unlike Paris, where most restaurants of note closed for the weekend and that was that, the central parts of France could be the very devil once one got out of
synch. At least they were seeing something of the country, which was more than a lot of people staying at Dulac would do. Most would go back home saying they had stayed in the Auvergne and wouldn’t even have scratched the surface.

He glanced out of the window. It was starting to snow again. They would be lucky to make any of the restaurants on their list at this rate.

‘Monsieur Blanc?’

He gave a start. Conscious of reacting just that split second too late, he looked up to see the Inspector he’d bumped into the previous morning looking down at him. He wondered if all over France his colleagues were having similar problems adjusting themselves to their new code name.

‘
Oui.
’

‘AKA Pamplemousse, late of the
Sûreté
?’

It was pointless denying the fact and at least it gave him the answer to one of Shinko’s cryptic messages.

‘Lafarge.’ The Inspector held out his hand. ‘Mind if I join you?’

Monsieur Pamplemousse hesitated. ‘Perhaps over near the window where it will be quieter?’

The Inspector nodded, then stood to one side as a waiter, anticipating the move, took charge of Monsieur Pamplemousse’s glass.

‘What are you doing these days?’

Monsieur Pamplemousse shrugged. ‘A bit of this – a bit of that …’

‘It must pay very well whatever it is if you can afford to stay here.’ Inspector Lafarge made himself comfortable with his back to the light.

‘
Comme ci comme ça
.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse refused to be drawn.

‘You have heard the news, of course?’ said Lafarge as his drink arrived.

Monsieur Pamplemousse shook his head. ‘I have been out all the morning.’

‘Ah,
oui
. Of course, the school … I hear you have been giving a talk. I trust you will not have given the little ones nightmares?’

‘Rather the reverse,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse dryly.

‘Time will tell. As it usually does in the end. Tell me, was there much talk in the village of last night’s affair?’

Monsieur Pamplemousse shook his head. ‘Nothing was mentioned to my knowledge. But since I have no idea what happened …’

‘
Bon
.’ Lafarge seemed pleased. ‘We don’t want journalists tramping all over the place destroying evidence. At least not for the time being. As to what happened …’ He gave a shrug. ‘It was a case of attempted murder, pure and simple.’

‘Murder is never pure,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘and rarely simple.’

‘This was a knifing,’ said Lafarge. ‘It took place outside the
cuisine
.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse gave a whistle. ‘I heard a commotion. Cars. Doors slamming. A helicopter at one point.’ He paused. ‘What was the motive?’

Lafarge gave another shrug. ‘Who needs motives these days? They were most likely on the prowl and got disturbed. There were signs of a struggle.’

‘You said “they”. There was more than one?’

‘It could have been a couple of kids. But I doubt it. I have a theory.’

‘If I can be of any help …’

From the look on Lafarge’s face he could tell he had said the wrong thing.