Monsieur Pamplemousse on Vacation

by Michael Bond

  Getting down to work at long last, he began typing out a preliminary heading for his report on how the new equipment was functioning.

  Despite Doucette’s earlier comments, his fingers ran smoothly over the keyboard.

  Except … for a moment or two he sat nonplussed, staring at the words on the screen: Qnylyse Fonctionelle Eauip;ent Nouvelle q Qristide Pq,ple,ousse;;;

  Slowly the truth dawned on him. Monsieur Leclercq had been sold a pup – or rather two pups. Not only was the voice-activated programme for the dictating machine an English version, but so, too, was the laptop’s keyboard! Hence the Anglo-Saxon QWERT arrangement of the alphabet.

  It was not a good beginning. Ill omens were rife. He was glad Doucette wasn’t with him.

  Closing down the programme in disgust, he waited for the screen to go dark, then closed the lid. No doubt there would be ways of changing the language electronically. Doubtless he could choose to work in Afghanistan if the Director so wished, but that wasn’t the point. It would still mean the tops of the keys would have to be swapped around in order to avoid confusion and he had better things to do with his time.

  The sooner he collected the picture for Monsieur Leclercq, the sooner he would be able to relax and enjoy his holiday.

  Glancing up, he saw the two men were no longer there. Presumably had they had slipped away while he wasn’t looking.

  Bidding the English couple a polite good morning in gobbledegook, he went on his way. It could have been Greek for all the reaction he got, although the woman did give him a sickly smile.

  Back at the hotel he found two police cars parked outside, along with a British-registered Rover and a top of the range black Mercedes-Benz S-Class with all-round tinted glass and an 06 Alpes Maritimes registration.

  One of the uniformed policemen eyed him curiously, as though trying to place him. His time in the Paris Sûreté still followed him around. The affair at the Folies that had led to his early retirement seemed to be indelibly etched on people’s memories. Short of growing a beard he would have to grin and bear being recognised wherever he went for a long time to come. There were times when he might just as well have had his face on a WANTED poster and have done with it.

  Pommes Frites was nowhere to be seen. For some reason best known to himself he had been acting very independently since their arrival. Monsieur Pamplemousse put it down to the holiday spirit. No doubt he would turn up when it suited him, and with the driver of the hotel courtesy coach into Antibes looking as though he was about to leave, he made a snap decision and climbed aboard.

  A little way along the road, just past the first bend, he noticed a huge silver American Airstream caravan trailer parked in a lay-by cut in the side of the hill. There was no sign of a towing vehicle and it had an air of semi-permanence about it.

  In Antibes he was just in time to catch the 10.22 Transports Express Régionaux double-decker train to Nice. Choosing the top deck, he found himself in a carriage surrounded by American Mormons. Smartly-dressed and freshly scrubbed, wearing their metal name badges with obvious pride, they all looked too young to be called ‘Elders’. The world was growing more cosmopolitan by the day. The last time he had taken a train on that line, admittedly some years ago, it had been full of genuinely elderly local ladies on their way to market.

  Gare Nice St Augustin came and went and with it the once thriving Victorine film studios. It was hard to visualise it having been the setting for Les Enfants du Paradis, the first film he and Doucette had ever seen together. Given the almost constant roar of jet aircraft taking off from the airport on the other side of the railway track it wouldn’t be easy to make its equivalent nowadays.

  Afterwards they had ended up eating couscous at a small North African restaurant near Place Clichy, and the name had remained a term of endearment ever since.

  Five minutes later they arrived at the Gare Nice-Ville.

  Picking up a street map from the Tourist Office on his way out, and seeing a long queue outside the ticket-kiosk on the far side of the square, he took another chance and jumped on a local Sunbus which was about to depart.

  Handing the driver 3f 50 in exchange for a plastic card marked 1 voyage solo, he validated it in the machine and sat back to take in his surroundings as they headed down the wide main street towards the sea.

  So far, so good. Already he felt in a better mood. With luck he would be back at the hotel in time for lunch on the beach.

  At the bottom of the avenue Jean Medicin they entered the vast Place Masséna with its Italian-style arcaded buildings, their façades stuccoed in red ochre, the pavements crowded with shoppers and window-gazing tourists. Taking a left, the bus headed inland again alongside the landscaped area acting as a roof to the Paillon river. Now relegated to being a mere underground stream, it had for centuries been the dividing line between the old city of Nice and the new.

  It still had its moments of fame, of course. In 1976 it had been the setting for one of the great bank robberies of all time. Un ‘Coup’ Monumental Nice-Matin had called it. In total the haul had been the equivalent of over $1400,000,000.

  Monsieur Jacques Genet, the directeur at the time, must still suffer nightmares thinking about it.

  A little away along the boulevard Jean Jaures he saw what he was looking for: the restaurant L’Univers – Christian Plumail. It was time to get off.

  Bernard still waxed lyrical about an entrée he had there on the last inspection two years ago. An unlikely, but apparently wholly delicious grande assiette of tomatoes: stuffed, dried, roasted and plainly sliced, topped by a deliciously fresh tomato sorbet.

  Bernard’s confession at the annual staff get-together that he hadn’t realised until then how many things one could do with a tomato had given rise to much ribald comment.

  Entering the old town, Monsieur Pamplemousse began working his way through the maze of narrow, winding streets and tiny squares, making for the harbour area, where most of the antique shops were located.

  The tall seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Genoese seaside Baroque buildings lining the alleyways on either side, their wrought iron balconies festooned with flowers and washing hanging out to dry, stood as a permanent reminder that they had once belonged to Italy.

  He felt like a flâneur of old, taking his morning stroll. From being poor and run down, there was now an embarrassment of riches. At ground level, nouveau art galleries and designer-dress shops were sandwiched between old-fashioned bricolages and bars, charcuteries and fromageries; food shops of all descriptions, whose owners were probably steadfastly refusing to sell out. It was very different to the first time he’d visited Nice, long before he had ever dreamt that one day he might become a food inspector. In those days it had been almost a no-go area after dark.

  It was hard to say who would win in the end, but there was hardly room for both.

  Emerging into blinding sunshine he found himself outside the church of St-Martin-St-Augustin. Set into a wall directly opposite was a massive plaque dedicated to the memory of Catherine Ségurane, a local washerwoman who in 1543 achieved fame by mounting the ramparts and lowering her culottes in the face of a horde of invading Turks under the command of the infamous Admiral Barbarossa. Gazing up at her formidable derrière as she stooped to pick up her paddle, they had run for their lives. He didn’t blame them.

  Making his way down to the street which also bore her name, he stopped once again and took out a piece of paper the Director had given him in order to double-check it against his map. Although he hadn’t registered it at the time, there was no name and no phone number, just the minimal address scribbled on a piece of lined paper torn from a notepad. He didn’t even recognise the handwriting. It certainly wasn’t the Director’s.

  A line of schoolchildren snaking their way past nudged each other. One, braver than the rest, placed a sticky finger over the autoroute to Cannes as he went past.

  ‘Vous êtes ici, Monsieur,’ he called, and they hurried on their way laughing happily.
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br />   Monsieur Pamplemousse wondered what would have happened to the boy had he tried it on with Madame Ségurene. Probably another bottom would have been bared that morning, and it wouldn’t have been hers.

  He found the address he was looking for, sandwiched between a garage and a builder’s yard at the end of an alleyway not far from the antique market in the ‘Village Ségurene’. But this time his luck ran out. A roll-top shutter was in place over the front. The lock securing it looked new. On the other hand, if the other establishments in the immediate neighbourhood were anything to go by, most of them, including the garage, must do their business later in the day.

  He tried banging on the shutter but there was no reply. While he was debating what to do next, a black Mercedes drew up at the end of the alleyway and a man got out. Dressed in plain clothes, he nevertheless reeked Police Judiciaire. There was something vaguely familiar about him, and his feigned surprise at seeing Monsieur Pamplemousse wouldn’t have won him any prizes at the Comédie-Française.

  Greetings exchanged, a gentle probe began. ‘What brings you to this part of the world? Don’t tell me you are in the antiques business now.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse was non-committal. ‘I am looking into a certain matter for someone.’

  The response was equally cryptic. ‘Once a flic – always a flic, eh?’

  ‘Alors!’ Monsieur Pamplemousse gave a shrug. ‘So the saying goes.’ Having no wish to prolong the conversation, he glanced pointedly at his watch, then held out his hand. He received a firm shake in return.

  ‘Au revoir. Take care how you go.’ There was no offer of a lift.

  As he made his way slowly down towards the harbour Monsieur Pamplemousse puzzled over the last remark. It could simply have been a question of territories, but it had also sounded remarkably like a serious warning. Or a straightforward threat! He wondered, too, about the Mercedes with its conspicuously anonymous dark glass windows, behind which he had seen the outline of the man already making a phone call as the car moved away.

  Leaving the main port with its array of luxury yachts behind, he crossed over the rue de Foresta and stopped for a moment or two in a little park overlooking the commercial harbour. A cargo boat with an Amsterdam registration was being loaded. It looked huge to his eyes. 5,000 tonnes? 10,000? He had no idea. Truffert, another of his colleagues, would have known. He had spent most of his life at sea before joining Le Guide.

  Whatever the tonnage was now, it would be considerably more by the time it set sail. As far as the eye could see the quay was lined with huge white bags of cement and more were arriving by the minute. Each one must weigh a tonne or more. The ship was riding high out of the water and each time its crane reached over the side to hoist another load on board – ten bags at a time – there was a distinct roll.

  It was like watching a ballet, and as so often happened when thoughts ran free he found himself back at the antique shop.

  Why would anyone want to put him off? And had the officer arrived by chance? It was almost as though he’d been waiting round the corner expecting someone to turn up.

  At the far end of the quay a ferry arrived from Corsica and almost immediately began to disgorge its load; cars and vans rather than cabin trunks. Air transport had taken away a lot of the romance of travel, and with it the excitement of arriving in a strange port at a leisurely pace. Nowadays the shock of encountering a strange culture often had to be absorbed in a matter of seconds.

  A small boy on rollerblades buzzing to and fro behind him interrupted his train of thought and, it being a day for spur of the moment decisions, rather than follow the noisy traffic-ridden boulevard Princesse de Monaco round the peninsula, he set off up the hill leading to the Colline du Château, the huge mound overlooking the harbour on one side and the Baie des Anges on the other.

  It was where the Greeks had built their acropolis, only to have it demolished by the Savoyards, who replaced it with a citadel. That, too, had suffered a similar fate at the hands of the Sun King, Louis XIV.

  Halfway up the hill he entered the Christian cemetery and stopped to get his breath back. A woman in black armed with a bucket of water and a scrubbing brush went past, joining the rest of her family on what was clearly a regular cleaning operation. An attendant waved a warning finger at a small group of Japanese tourists posing nearby, directing them to a notice on the gate saying the taking of photographs was forbidden.

  Making his way to the outer wall, he looked out across the valley and was once again reminded of the bank robbery. Between where he was standing and the surrounding hills, the huge Palais des Expositions stood astride the entrance to the underground river where it had all started. A bare trickle now, but at certain times of the year, when the snows melted, it was probably a different matter.

  Led by one Albert Spaggiari, who had managed to acquire a plan showing the layout of the sewer system, the thieves made their way down the Paillon, located the foundations of the main branch of the Société Générale Bank at 8 Avenue Jean Médecin, then tunnelled their way into the vaults. Once inside, they welded the giant twenty-ton Fichet-Bauche door to its frame and spent the whole of one weekend quietly going through the strong boxes, the contents of which many owners had no wish to reveal.

  Where there is great wealth, crime is never far away, and Nice was certainly no exception. He was glad he hadn’t had to work on the case. By all accounts there had been too much pulling of strings behind the scenes for his liking; too many nameless high-ups who’d had good reason to soft pedal the whole affair.

  By contrast, the adjoining Jewish cemetery further up the hill was a sad affair; full of reminders of families torn apart by the Holocaust. It began just inside the entrance where there were two urns; one containing ashes from the victims of concentration camps and the other rendered down grease for making soap.

  The sole occupant, a small man in a dark lounge suit several sizes too big for him, disappeared behind a tomb as soon as he entered, almost as though still fleeing for his life. Monsieur Pamplemousse left him to it.

  Passing a cascade further down the hill a few minutes later, he automatically looked round for Pommes Frites. He would have revelled in its ice-cold water.

  There was a moment when he thought he was being followed, but then decided he was imagining things – it was only a mother and child in a pushchair. All three of them jumped at the sound of an explosion nearby and the child started to cry.

  ‘C’est normale.’ The woman gave the child a pat. ‘It is the noonday cannon,’ she added for Monsieur Pamplemousse’s benefit. ‘Or rather, it is the explosive device that has replaced it. It is not so nice.’

  ‘Nothing is for ever,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse.

  He remembered now. The firing of a canon had been instituted by an Englishman who liked to make sure his meals arrived on time no matter where he happened to be. Such an admirable device was not to be ignored. Following the signs to the ascenseur he quickened his pace and was just in time to catch one going down.

  Doucette was right, of course. They had no idea what size Monsieur Leclercq’s ‘work of art’ would be. The Director had been characteristically vague on that score. He couldn’t think why he hadn’t asked at the time, but then neither had she.

  Paying his Fr.3.80 to the Madame at the bottom he registered the fact that chiens were half price. Given that Pommes Frites took up enough room for two adults it would be good value if he happened to join him on a return visit; especially if they did what he should have done in the first place – used it to go up rather than down.

  Entering the Cours Saleya through the first of the old arched gateways, memories came flooding back. Teeming with life and colour; it was no wonder that when Matisse lived there his doctor tried to persuade him to wear dark glasses to protect his vision.

  Beyond the dazzling display of flowers – peonies, roses, carnations and lilies – lay the fruit and vegetable market with its mouthwatering displays of freshly picked apples, apricots, cherries
and nectarines. Pyramids of pears and peaches fought for space alongside huge red tomatoes and tiny ripe Ogen melons from Cavaillon. Aubergines and peppers gave way to mounds of green and black olives and great fat bunches of garlic. There were tables laid out with glacé fruits, others with bowls of multicoloured dried herbs; saffron, cayenne and spices of all descriptions.

  Around the perimeter of the market small cafés had local specialities on display: pan bagna – bread rolls split in half, sprinkled with olive oil and filled with tomatoes, green peppers and black olives; pissaladièra – pastry shells containing anchovy paste, olives and onion purée. Copper pans stood ready for the old favourite, socca. Made with olive oil and chickpea flour, they had to be eaten piping hot.

  Through a gap in the crowd he suddenly caught sight of the man from the Jewish cemetery. Only a few stalls away, he was holding an artichoke up to the light with his left hand, as though studying it. With his other hand he held a mobile phone to his ear.

  As their eyes met Monsieur Pamplemousse found himself wondering how many others in the world were doing exactly the same thing at that very moment, and decided that statistically not many, if any at all. Could there be a woman somewhere, drumming impatiently because he was late home with the shopping? Somehow doubting it, he hurried on his way.

  Passing the Opera House, he noticed the door to the Église St-François-de-Paule on the opposite side of the road was open. Taking advantage of a stationary delivery van caught up in the traffic, he skirted round the back of it, ignored the outstretched hand of a beggar hovering on the pavement, and slipped inside.

  He was beginning to wish he’d brought Pommes Frites with him after all. Pommes Frites would have seen him off whoever he was.