Murder on the Mediterranean (Capucine Culinary Mystery)

by Alexander Campion

  To the beat of the throbbing motor, Serge eased through the postcard emerald greens and Tyrian purples of the coastal waters and in fifteen minutes reached the ink–dark blue of the open sea. Capucine sat on the bow pulpit with Inès, smiling at the early afternoon tropical sun. Inès, unnerved even by the gentle rocking of the boat as it glided across the glass-flat sea, clutched the pulpit rails with both hands.

  Far behind them, at the stern, Serge, skipper once again, ordered Nathalie to take the helm and Florence to raise the mainsail. As Florence began to crank the halyard winch on the side of the mast, Alexandre stuck his head out of the hatchway like a jack-in-the box, blinking from the brightness of the sea sun.

  “Pas si vite, mon ami. Not just yet, my friend,” Alexandre said, his voice heavy with authority. “Lunch first, and then you can play with your boat to your heart’s content.”

  Clenching his teeth, Serge forced a smile as Florence dropped the six inches of mainsail she had raised and clipped three shock cords to secure the sail in place on the boom.

  Alexandre emerged from the hatch with a tray, followed by Régis, bearing another one. Serge’s smile climbed up his face and lit up his eyes. He went below and emerged with two bottles of chilled Tempier rosé and a stack of flimsy plastic glasses adorned with the charter company’s florid monogram. He was clearly far more at home in the persona of a host than that of a skipper.

  “Look what Alexandre’s brought us. We’re in for a treat,” Serge said.

  “Three different bruschette,” Régis said, striving for stage center. “One is made with fresh plums, Serrano ham, and ricotta. Another with sautéed chicken covered with yellow and red cherry tomatoes sliced in half, topped with slices of fontina, and then grilled. And a third is made with onions, carrots, zucchini, red beans, baby spinach leaves, sprinkled with herbes de Provence and coated with a spinach pesto sauce.”

  Régis produced his camera and snapped pictures of the trays. Serge filled and distributed glasses. Forgetting he was intended to serve lunch, Régis rearranged the serving dishes, creating an expressionist tableau of summer colors.

  “Do we have to wait until you’ve completely reclothed the model before we can partake?” Jacques asked. There were three beats of shocked silence before the cockpit rippled with laughter.

  The wings of the table in the middle of the cockpit were raised, converting it into a cozy restaurant booth. The group scuttled around like schoolchildren gathering for their three o’clock gouter. Aude wound up at the stern end of the cockpit, inches away from Nathalie, at the helm. Angélique and Inès squatted, legs folded, on the sill of the hatch. The volume of chatter increased as the wine circulated. The contretemps of the morning evaporated as quickly as summer dew. The bruschette were perfect: light, flavorful, estival. As the serving dishes passed from hand to hand, Aude pivoted and glared at Nathalie’s feet, directly behind her, gray with the grime of Port Grimaud’s streets.

  Elegant as a prima ballerina rising from a plié, Aude stood up, stepped onto the deck, and repositioned herself on the sliding cover of the hatch, towering over the group, a princess with her subjects assembled respectfully before her.

  Solicitous of every crew member, topping up every glass when it was half full, serving every nearly filled plate with additional bruschetta, Serge was in his element. Capucine knew from Alexandre that Serge’s success with his restaurant-bar business stemmed from his ability to simultaneously animate the front of the house of five different restaurants, and not from his business acumen.

  When Serge bent over Inès to pour wine, she fingered at his shirt.

  “I couldn’t find a life preserver in my cabin. Isn’t it dangerous not having one? Shouldn’t there be one?”

  As she spoke, her pluck on his shirt escalated into a crumpling grip. Alexandre felt the calm of the afternoon percolate away in an unpleasant sea change. High time for Inès to have the conversation nudged back ashore.

  “Do you know, Inès, that we have a movie auteur on board so skillful, he could have made our mouths water even for the canned Panzani slop we so barely escaped?”

  “Régis? I thought he was in advertising.”

  “I hardly think of it as advertising,” Régis said, affronted. “I’m a table director, not a movie director. Trust me, that’s where the real skill is required. I work only with food. Take that TV ad for Charolais Allô that came out yesterday—you know, the one with the steam rising from a succulent pavé de bœuf and fries that look like they would melt in your mouth. It took me a whole week to pull it off.”

  “Inès,” Dominique said, wresting the attention back, “there’s nothing to worry about. These boats are unsinkable. But I’m sure if you think you’d feel safer with a life vest on while you’re on watch, Serge would be happy to issue you one.”

  He showed Alexandre and Capucine the sketch he had been working on. In the drawing the dumped mainsail had been morphed into something organic, perhaps the disemboweled colon of an animal. A blond woman, naked from the waist up, sat in the cockpit, contemplating the sail. All that could be seen of her was a shapely back, hair done up in a ballerina bun, a long and sinuous neck.

  Angélique peered down at the sketch and screeched, “That’s not my breast. My breasts are larger.” She pressed her index finger hard into the pencil drawing, smudging the side of the torso, where the shadow of a breast might, or might not, have appeared. “And I know exactly who it is! It’s that filthy boat girl. Serge, if I’d known you were going to hire people like that, I’d never have come.” She pushed by her neighbors, stalked down the companionway, and slammed the cabin door.

  Unperturbed, Dominique restored the offending breast with a few pencil strokes. Jacques made the merest moue at Aude and hiked his eyebrows microscopically. Aude produced the hint of a smile back at him. Capucine was sure she saw that.

  His confidence restored, his belly full, Serge took over the helm and, with a sweep of his hand, motioned Nathalie to clear the dishes. With a plastic clatter she piled them up, stuffing the remains of half-eaten bruschetta into her mouth. The cockpit was quickly vacated.

  The sails went up with a rattle of halyard winches, the boat heeled over, the engine stopped, and the sounds of the sea lapping at the hull became audible.

  Capucine, Aude, and Angélique slipped below to put on bathing suits and reappeared on deck, Angélique with a pile of art magazines, Capucine with the latest Fred Vargas mystery, Aude with a slim volume of poetry. The women spread out on deck, removed the tops to their bathing suits, and lathered themselves with suntan oil.

  Angélique sat at the masthead with Dominique, flipping through the pages of art magazines, as he observed the mandatory ritual of oiling his wife’s naked back. Alexandre joined Capucine on the bow. They sat, legs dangling over the side, heads ducked under the top wire of the lifeline to keep themselves vertical, admiring the receding coast. This was pure bliss, Capucine told herself. Why hadn’t they ever gone on a long cruise before? Capucine smirked when she caught Alexandre scrutinizing the breasts of the two women. Men and their inexplicable breast fetish. How odd it was. Aude, with her sculptured alabaster breasts, was indifferent, but Angélique caught Alexandre’s glimpse and arched her back, making her full breasts even larger.

  Of course, women were even more caught up in the fetish than men were. Proud as she was of showing off her mammaries on deck, Angélique would be mortified if one of the males on board had come across her topless below deck. And all this over instruments the Maker had intended merely for the nourishment of offspring.

  Half an hour later, just as Alexandre and Capucine were contemplating a short siesta in their cabin, Régis appeared on deck with a large pitcher and another stack of plastic glasses.

  “Negronis,” he said. “My own variety. I make them with gin, Campari, Martini & Rossi, a healthy splash of Prosecco, and a wedge of orange. Since we’re heading for Italy, we may as well italianate ourselves.” The bubbly Negronis elevated the afternoon into something sign
ificant, possibly even transcendent.

  Away from the land, the breeze stiffened to the promised twenty knots and backed to the south. Serge trimmed the sails flat and hard as iron, and the brave Diomede heeled well over, crashing aggressively into the intensifying chop. Sleek as the Dufour looked at her berth, Capucine realized that she really was a heavy bathtub of a boat, built stiff to make an inexperienced crew feel secure. She came alive only in a strong wind, and even then she was still unyielding, hanging on to the vertical with all her might, plowing through the waves instead of soaring.

  Inès groaned and rolled her eyes. Serge motioned Angélique to the helm and went below. There was no doubt Angélique was a master at the wheel. Capucine snuggled under Alexandre’s arm and rejoiced in the afternoon. They were definitely going to go cruising more often.

  A good bit later Alexandre went below to begin some culinary complexity that apparently was the sine qua non of dinner. Capucine gave the large deck a cursory look for Inès but didn’t see her. Just as she concluded that Inès had gone below to nurse her seasickness in her bunk, Capucine heard a retching sound and saw Inès’s skinny buttocks, clad in olive-drab shorts, peek out from under the taut genoa.

  Capucine went forward to the bow and swung around the luff of the jib. Inès was kneeled over the lifeline, pathetically making an offering of Alexandre’s bruschetta to the sea. Capucine commiserated. There was no despair deeper than wrenching seasickness.

  Her hand loosely around the lifeline, Capucine inched down the deck to join Inès, who looked up and smiled bleakly. Hidden behind the luminous backdrop of the enormous genoa, they were isolated in a magical world, sandwiched between the rushing sea and the glowing white expanse of Dacron.

  A strong gust heeled the boat over more, putting the rail under water. Capucine clutched the lifeline as the water rose to her knees. Inès was slammed hard into one of the vertical stainless-steel lifeline stanchions and then began to slip under the lowest wire. She was inches away from being washed overboard. Capucine pushed through the water, folded one arm around Inès’s torso, locked the other around the lifeline, clenched her muscles.

  The Dacron of the genoa crashed down on them like a falling brick wall. Capucine stretched, put her arm around the lifeline until her hands could clasp onto opposing wrists, locking Inès in her grasp. Capucine hung on for all she was worth. They both went under water for eternal seconds. The sail scraped roughly over their backs, tearing at their clothes until the boat’s angle of heel lessened. Capucine and Inès coughed and sputtered. Florence crossed the deck in long, sure-footed strides, picked them both up by the collars, dumped them none too gently onto the cushions of the cockpit. They sat in lumps, still gasping for breath, salt water streaming from their bedraggled hair.

  Ignoring them, Florence went to the port-side wheel, unscrewed a knob, and jockeyed the helm, looking sternly at the rigging and the sea. Like a rambunctious dog subjugated by the return of its master, the boat sailed placidly on through the brilliant afternoon, guided only by Florence’s two fingers lightly on the top of the giant wheel.

  A drowned rat, Inès sputtered, wet strands of colorless hair covering her eyes. Her glasses were gone. Capucine smiled at her. “Why, you’re beautiful without your glasses.” She giggled. Inès giggled with her. It was the first time Capucine had ever seen her laugh.

  People poured through the hatchway like circus clowns bursting out of a miniature car. Angélique was furious. She shouted at Capucine and Inès, stabbing at them with her index finger. She had been at the helm, doing quite a good job with such a big boat, when Serge had abandoned her to go below. The boat had been hit by a violent squall. Frightened as she was, she had had the presence of mind to do the right thing. She had edged the helm downwind and had eased the sails to reduce the list. She’d had no idea two people were sitting on the lee rail. How could she have? They should have told her. It was their fault, not hers. And she had been brave enough to stay at the helm until she had been relieved by Florence. No one appreciated her.

  As Alexandre led Capucine below to the comforts of towels, hair dryer, fresh clothes, and a hot rum toddy, Dominique emerged on deck to the harridan shrieks of Angélique. “You had the nerve to leave me alone on deck while you were panting after that grubby, hussy boat girl, and just look what happened. Your incessant skirt chasing nearly killed two people.”

  CHAPTER 6

  When the sun set with a kaleidoscopic show of brilliant reds and pinks spread out over the slate-blue sea, Capucine told herself the ultimate proof of the Dear’s divinity was His ability to keep such a garish show from being vulgar.

  Most of the group was still on deck, chatting. A ship’s bell clanged. Régis stuck his head out of the hatchway.

  “Allez. Allez, les amis. Dinner’s ready. Do you want to eat up here or down below?”

  “It’s such a beautiful evening. Let’s eat on dec—” Dominique started to say.

  He was cut off by Angélique, who sat at the bow with Capucine and Inès.

  “Below, definitely, Régis. It’s starting to get cold.”

  Régis gave Dominique a conspiratorial smile.

  Without the horizon as a reference, the heel of the boat was far more apparent below deck. Capucine let the slope of the deck propel her to the galley console. Alexandre was at his diminutive stove, in the midst of one his cooking epiphanies. The stove, set on gimbals, was the only horizontal surface in the salon. Alexandre had found a wide strap that hooked into the counter at the sides of the stove, allowing the cook to lean back in complete comfort against the boat’s heel. On one burner he was making some sort of sauce; on another he was sautéing something that could have been miniature rugby balls. The salon smelled pleasantly of garlic.

  At his side, Régis was enthusiastically taking pictures of Alexandre à l’œuvre.

  “Our first real meal on the boat,” he announced at large. “My blog entry is going to be fabulous. I’m going to write it right after dinner.”

  With a flourish Alexandre wrapped a side towel around the handle of the metal skillet and put it in the oven. He undid one of the clips of the strap and climbed up the incline into Capucine’s arms.

  “I’m so in love with youuu,” he sang. “And also so in love with this little stove,” he continued in his normal voice. “Cooking on that toy-size thing is a challenge. But you know what they say. The test of a deep-sea sailor is the ability to make perfect profiteroles in a gale-force storm. And I intend to pass that test before this cruise is over.”

  Behind them, Régis laid a damp cloth on the table to prevent the dishes from sliding and then proceeded to lay the table. He tucked the knives and forks wrapped in paper napkins on the uphill sides of the plates and tested everything with his finger to see if it was secure against the list.

  Six of the group inched their way up the hill onto the settees, those in the center sitting back as if in reclining chairs. Serge sat at one end and squeezed over to make room for Aude, who sat perfectly erect without any effort or apparent means of support.

  Capucine sat in one of the three swivel chairs screwed into the floor and leaned far forward, bracing herself on the table with her elbows. The damp from the tablecloth was clammy and unpleasant on her elbows. The boat hammered through the chop with loud banging resonating through it from the bow. Still, Capucine told herself, the discomfort was part and parcel of the thing, more a testimony to adventure than a trial. They really were deep at sea, in their own private universe. The feeling could not be equaled.

  With a flourish, Régis placed a large Plexiglas bowl filled with dark primary colors in front of Angélique. He shuffled downhill back to the galley area and returned with a small metal pot containing a dark liquid, which he poured with great care over the dish. He handed Angélique a Plexiglas salad knife-and-fork set and dropped back a few feet, his camera poised.

  “Can you toss this and then serve, Angélique? It seems we have to eat it while the sauce it still hot.” The second Angélique’
s implements touched the bowl, a bright flash and then two more dazed the diners. “Great shot,” Régis announced. “Now give me some action, Angélique. I want to see some real tossing. I need drama.”

  Turning to face Alexandre, who had removed his little rugby balls from the oven and was covering them with aluminum foil, Régis asked, “What do you call this again?”

  Alexandre pushed his way up the incline, smiling the proud grin of a three-star chef emerging from his kitchen. Capucine was sure he imagined himself in a foot-high, immaculate white chef’s toque.

  “Bagna cauda. It’s a Niçois classic. Potatoes, baby beets, baby leeks, baby carrots, spring onions, radishes, bell peppers, endive, and many other things, but most importantly, properly trimmed baby artichokes. The sauce is made with anchovies and garlic in olive oil. But the point of the thing is that it has to be eaten hot. Hence the name.”

  As always, Alexandre’s food had a mesmerizing effect. No one spoke for thirty seconds. The anchovies gave the delicate baby vegetables a piquancy that elevated them to the ethereal. Dishes like this never surprised Capucine when Alexandre made them on his enormous La Cornue stove in their apartment, but the fact that he was able to pull it off on a tiny stove on a heaving sea impressed her. She hoped they might have a serious storm so he could attempt profiteroles.

  Capucine looked over at Inès to see how she was coping with her first in-cabin meal. She seemed to be relishing the bagna cauda.

  “So tell us, Serge,” Angélique said with exaggerated cheerfulness, “all about Bonifacio. What time are we going to get there, and what’s it going to look like?”

  Serge puffed out his chest like a carrier pigeon. “Bonifacio is one of the great natural harbors of the world. It’s at the end of a narrow gorge nearly half a mile long and cut into the rock. And high up on the rock, above the harbor, there’s a small town—”