by Michael Bond
Making a break for it, he dashed towards the gates. The woman attendant beckoned to him invitingly from the shelter of her hut as they ran past. In her plastic bonnet she looked like an elderly pixie who had seen better days. Monsieur Pamplemousse pretended he hadn’t seen her, which wasn’t difficult, for by now the rain was coming down in sheets. Their departure coincided with a loud clap of thunder almost overhead.
Thinking about it afterwards, Monsieur Pamplemousse was inclined to draw a veil over the rest of the day; some things in life were best forgotten. Soaked to the skin; his already heavy suit feeling like a ton weight; failing miserably in an attempt to board an already over-crowded autobus whose passengers took one look at Pommes Frites and then raised their voices in a unanimous vote of protest – totally unappreciative of the fact that in similar circumstances, they too would have wished to shake themselves dry; unable to find a taxi – doubtless they had all gone home to escape the worst of the weather; their way barred on the Métro by a group of roving Inspectors anxious to justify their salaries whilst themselves sheltering from the storm; it felt like a bad dream during which one avenue after another was barred to them. He was past caring. There had come a point where nothing mattered any more.
If he had thought about it at all he would have gone back to his own apartment and got a change of clothing; but he didn’t, so there was no point in wishing he had. Like a homing pigeon, he headed for Madame Grante’s instead. He was far too wet to notice that in his absence someone had collected the mail from the box in the hall.
Never had anywhere looked more welcoming. As soon as they were safely inside her apartment, Monsieur Pamplemousse emptied the pockets of his suit and spread them out over the living-room table. The recent soaking had started where the first one had left off. It was doubtful if his suit would ever be the same again. He found the remains of a disintegrated mothball where his wallet had been and immediately wished he hadn’t. It would probably take days for the smell to go away. Removing his jacket, shirt and trousers, he draped them over a clothes-hanger, then looked around for somewhere to hook it. The hall was out of the question. He tried hitching it over a drawer knob in the kitchen, but in no time at all there was a pool of water over the floor which grew larger with every passing moment. In the end he settled on the balcony. The wind was blowing from the west and that side of the building was sheltered from the rain.
He shivered as he went back inside, locking the door behind him and drawing the curtains. It was no night to be out half-dressed. He made his way into the living-room, switched on the electric fire, and was about to undress further when he realised Pommes Frites was behaving strangely. He was pacing up and down, sniffing here, there and everywhere, looking first in the hall, then in the bedroom and the kitchen; nothing escaped his scrutiny.
Monsieur Pamplemousse glanced around. He prided himself on having a photographic memory, and as far as he could see everything was exactly where he had left it that morning. Yet there was no denying the look of intense concentration on Pommes Frites’ face. Clearly something was amiss. Equally certain was the fact that whatever or whoever was responsible was no longer in evidence.
So in the spirit of better safe than sorry, Monsieur Pamplemousse went the rounds, lowering the shutters on all the windows and putting the catch on the front door to be on the safe side. Then he carried on as before.
Removing the rest of his clothing, he filled the kitchen sink with water and left it to soak. Then he went into the bathroom and turned on the taps.
Following on behind, Pommes Frites sat watching in thoughtful mood while his master lay back, luxuriating in the warmth of the water as it crept higher and higher. He knew what he knew, and in his humble opinion having a bath was not the most important thing in the world at that moment in time, but there was no accounting for the way human beings behaved. They often did the strangest things.
It wasn’t long before the inevitable happened. Monsieur Pamplemousse began to sing. It was another thing that was a constant source of amazement to Pommes Frites: the odd noises human beings made when confronted with a bath full of water.
Suddenly they both froze as a voice came from the other room. Monsieur Pamplemousse scrambled to his feet. He reached out for a towel only to discover there wasn’t one. In desperation he grabbed hold of the first thing he could find. As he climbed out of the bath he caught sight of his reflection in a mirror.
There was only one consolation. Whoever the voice belonged to, it was patently not Madame Grante. She wouldn’t take kindly to the sight of her best flannel being used for the purpose to which he had just put it.
7
RENDEZVOUS AT AUX DEUX MAGOTS
Signalling Pommes Frites to remain where he was, Monsieur Pamplemousse crept towards the bathroom door and peered through the crack. Hairs bristling, muscles quivering, ready to spring into action at the blink of an eyelid, Pommes Frites obeyed instructions, albeit with a certain amount of reluctance. From where he was crouching his master looked more than usually vulnerable and in need of care and protection. Bringing up his rear was not, in Pommes Frites’ opinion, the best way to go about things.
‘Allô. Qui est là?’
‘Allô. Qui est là?’ Monsieur Pamplemousse gave a start and then relaxed. The voice echoing his words from the other room had a familiar, if not particularly welcome ring to it.
He flung open the door and was greeted by a fluttering of wings as something small and blue detached itself from a nearby picture rail and took off in a wild excursion round and round the room, careering into things as it went, before finally settling on a curtain at the far end.
It was all he needed to make his cup of unhappiness complete – a oiseau! And not just any old oiseau, but clearly, from the few words it had uttered to date, the genuine article. Where JoJo had been hiding and what he had been doing during the interim period was neither here nor there; a mystery which would probably never be solved. But there he was, as large as life and twice as noisy, gazing at him through beady, panic-stricken eyes. It was a problem Monsieur Pamplemousse was in no mood to deal with at that moment, even if he’d been able to. For a split second he was sorely tempted to take the easy way out and open the windows; what the eye didn’t see the heart didn’t grieve for, but his better nature caused him to have second thoughts. It was hard to envisage, but Madame Grante probably loved JoJo.
There was a stirring from inside the bathroom as Pommes Frites, tiring of his restricted view of the world and unable to contain his curiosity a moment longer, joined his master in the doorway. Monsieur Pamplemousse immediately felt a pang of remorse. That he could have thought the worst about his friend was unforgivable. He reached down and gave him a conciliatory pat.
Pommes Frites, for his part, looked as though he would have been only too pleased to make up for things and in so doing justify his master’s earlier mistake. His better nature did not extend to love of birds, domesticated or otherwise. He licked his lips. Birds were for chasing.
Bereft of his clothes, clad only in an ill-fitting silk dressing-gown belonging to Madame Grante which he had found hanging behind the bedroom door, his inner man scarcely replenished by a single slice of toasted stale baguette which he shared with Pommes Frites, Monsieur Pamplemousse spent an unhappy evening. The high spot came when, having washed his underclothes, he hung them out on the balcony alongside his suit. With luck they would be dry by morning. After that, time hung heavily on his hands. At around nine o’clock he had a second slice of toast. Pommes Frites devoured his half in a single crunch, then sat watching through soulful unblinking eyes while Monsieur Pamplemousse eked out his portion until, unable to stand it a moment longer, he sacrificed the last corner.
He toyed with the idea of ringing Doucette to see if she could organise something, but it was late and explanations as to why he was sitting in Madame Grante’s apartment sans his clothes would be tedious in the extreme and might not be believed.
He tried watching television for
a while, but it was a panel game, ‘Chiffres et Nombres,’ and he wasn’t in the mood. Tino Rossi singing ‘Mon Pays’ began to pall after the fourth playing, and as the evening wore on he found difficulty in sharing Edith Piaf’s philosophy of having no regrets.
Why on earth he hadn’t gone home first he didn’t know. Well, he did know, of course. Once he had his nose into a case nothing else mattered. But at least if he’d gone back to his own apartment he could have changed into some other clothes and used the time to better advantage. But doing what? He had done everything he could think of for the moment. It was now a matter of waiting. Waiting to see what his opponent’s next move would be. Despite the first message saying there would be no further communication, he couldn’t believe that was true. He’d already broken that vow once. He must be just as much on edge as everyone else, probably even more so. In his experience it was always the same; it was a battle of nerves – each side waiting to see if the other broke first. But would the next communication be in the form he’d threatened – a part of Madame Grante? The chances were that even if he meant what he’d said at the time, when it came to the crunch it would only be used as a last resort; certainly not until the date of Le Guide’s publication had come and gone.
If only Trigaux hadn’t stepped on the chocolates. The way he was feeling he would even have eaten the ones with the thumb-prints on.
Towards midnight he braved the lift and slipped down to the ground floor in Madame Grante’s dressing-gown in order to rescue the bird cage. Luckily it was still where he had left it. After that he spent a fruitless hour trying to catch JoJo, but JoJo wasn’t having any. He was a past-master at the art of allowing his adversary to get within a few centimetres of touching distance, before flying off. If it happened once, it happened a hundred times. In the end, worn out by all the exertion, Monsieur Pamplemousse gave it up as a bad job, tied the cage door open with a piece of string, and lay back on Madame Grante’s bed.
He stared up at the ceiling, contemplating his lot. There had to be better ways of spending an evening in Paris. Correction: there undoubtedly were better ways of spending an evening in Paris. Thousands of them.
He ran his eye along a row of books on a shelf in the bedside cabinet. The selection was no more exciting than it had been in the other room. He was in no mood for anything deep. Idly he removed a copy of the green Michelin Guide de Tourisme for the Jura. It was a recent edition. Presumably Madame Grante had acquired it when she went on her ill-fated holiday.
A folded brochure marked the town of Belfort.
Some three pages of the guide were devoted to its history and its Curiosités, of which there appeared to be a good many, including a statue of a giant lion eleven metres high and twenty-two metres long, carved by Bartholdi to celebrate the heroism of the town’s population in defending it against the onslaught of forty thousand Germans during the siege of 1870. Situated as it was in the gap between the Vosges and the Jura Mountains it was a natural route for any invaders from the east. Its defence by Colonel Denfert-Rochereau – he who not only had an avenue and a place named after him in the capital, but also the Métro station nearest to the Catacombs – was one of the few glorious episodes of the Franco-Prussian war. Earlier still, Vauban, whose statue was not a stone’s throw from Le Guide’s offices, had built the fortifications, from the terrace of which there was one of those beaux panoramas so beloved by Michelin. The Square E. – Lechten boasted a grande variété de plantes et de fleurs. Perhaps it was there that Madame Grante had met her paramour.
The river Savoureuse flowed through the town. The Canal de Montbéliard to the east joined up with the Canal du Rhône au Rhin. To the west the A36 autoroute provided a link between Germany and Switzerland on the one hand and central France on the other. Perhaps not surprisingly, those factors together with its situation had been of considerable economic importance to Belfort in recent years.
He turned to the brochure. There were pictures of the lion and of the old city, with its views of the river and the surrounding mountains. Another page was devoted to the industrial area which had grown up in the eastern half of the town, turning it into a centre for many enterprises ranging from metallurgy to textiles, through plastics, to locomotives and electronic equipment. Honeywell-Bull had a factory there.
Monsieur Pamplemousse sat up in bed with a start, suddenly wide awake. Was he about to establish yet another external connection?
He picked up the telephone and dialled Mademoiselle Borel’s number. It was answered almost immediately.
‘Martine, forgive me, I wouldn’t do this normally, but it is urgent.’
Despite the lateness of the hour, she didn’t seem at all put out. ‘I have been trying to get you. No one seemed to know where you were.’
‘Tell me?’
‘No, you first.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse took a deep breath. He was only too aware that the question uppermost in his mind could well have been answered by a simple call to the telephone exchange.
‘I saw in your c.v. that you had a spell with Honeywell-Bull. Was it in Belfort?’
‘No, it was at Angers. I was helping to develop a new mainframe computer system. But I have been to Belfort.’ She pre-empted his next question. ‘That is why I have been trying to get hold of you. The Poulanc factory is also there. I should have thought of it too. I was so pleased to have got the list of names I couldn’t wait to get them to you.’
‘There is no reason why you should have done. I only asked for the location of a photographer.’
‘Even so.’
‘It was of very great help. It narrowed the field. It also acted as a catalyst.’ Briefly he told her of the conversation he’d had with the girl from the Communications Room.
‘But you still don’t have a name?’
‘Not yet.’
‘If you do, be sure and let me know. He may have a credit card and I could find out more about him.’
‘That is possible?’
‘I have a friend, back in the States. He has access to information through the International Association of Credit Card Investigators in California. Strictly confidential, of course.’
‘Of course.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse was wide awake by now. His mind was racing with questions.
‘The computer uses disques, oui?’
‘If it is the model you say it is.’
‘How long would it take to change the information on one?’
‘That depends. If whoever did it was able to access the mainframe and the material was pre-prepared either on disque or on tape, then very little time at all. An entire novel can be transferred in a matter of a few minutes.’
‘And if it wasn’t pre-prepared? If he was making the changes as he went along?’
‘Then a very long time. Certainly no faster than a person can type. There is also the fact that he would have had to work at night when the computer wasn’t being used. That would have halved the available time.’
‘Whoever did it went to a lot of trouble. It wasn’t simply a matter of jumbling up a few entries – he went through the entire book making outrageous alterations. Had it ever seen the light of day there would have been enough libel actions to keep the lawyers busy for years. Given the fact that Le Guide was still in a state of preparation and was being constantly updated, he would have had to work extremely fast.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse was thinking aloud by now, acutely conscious that his questions were self-answering.
‘Extremely.’
‘We have been assuming all along that “all external connections were correct” and that the material on the print-out was a doctored version of the forthcoming guide, but supposing it wasn’t – supposing he had simply taken the current guide and changed that?’
‘Then he would have had all the time in the world. He could have done it at his leisure and then simply transferred the material at the last possible moment.’
‘Like the night before the launch party?’
‘Exactl
y.’
‘And to do that quickly?’
‘If it was fed in electronically it doesn’t matter what the information was on. It could have been on tape – a different size of disque … anything. It would simply be a matter of accessing the mainframe and feeding the signal in, erasing the original at the same time.
‘If it was done manually, then provided whoever is responsible knew what they were doing and had access to the computer room it would only be a matter of seconds to make the change.’
‘But for the latter the disque would need to be physically the same as the original?’
‘Clearly, yes. And since the system is peculiar to Poulanc that would imply the use of a similar machine at some stage, which makes the source of the photograph all the more interesting.’
‘What would your guess be?’
There was a pause. ‘If it was just an ordinary hacker, then I would say from the outside every time. A hacker would see the whole thing as a challenge. And even if they were caught he or she might get away with it. The law has yet to catch up on the complexities of electronic breaking and entering. It isn’t necessarily a criminal offence. Usually they are charged with some petty offence, like stealing electricity. From what you have told me so far …’
‘It has become a matter of life and death.’
‘In that case my guess would be that a carefully prepared disque was transferred physically at some point prior to the launch party. If, as you say, the copy disque has also been tampered with, then that could have been done at the same time, either physically or electronically. Again, my guess would be the former. It would save time.’
‘So it is possible that the original and its copy are still in existence?’
‘That is an area where your guess is as good as mine. He might have kept them. He might have thrown them away. It would most likely be a decision of the moment. He could have been tempted to keep them as a souvenir. Something to gloat over in his old age. Or he might simply have dropped them in a litter bin.’