Death of a Chef

by Alexander Campion

  “Your success is very impressive. Can we talk more about Monsieur Roque? Of his long list of enemies, did any of them manifest themselves recently? Were there office animosities or anything like that?”

  Durand shook his head slowly. “Roque was the most honest and humble man I’ve ever met. When he became president of the company, he continued to receive his foreman’s salary. He remained in his old house. He wore his old clothes. He drove his old car.” Durand paused to make sure Capucine was getting the point. “Once a week, if his schedule permitted, he would go down and work half a shift on one of the production lines. Not only because he needed to take the temperature of the plant. Not only because of the profound solidarity he felt toward the plant’s workers. But also because he loved working with his hands. He was a very skilled craftsman, and he didn’t want to lose that. I don’t think there’s a single employee here who wouldn’t have given his right hand—hell, his life—for Roque. Does that answer your question?”

  Capucine knew that extracting anything more from Durand would be as difficult as getting one of the apostles to gossip about Jesus.

  “Who was he close to at the plant?”

  “Me, Mouton, and Tissot. If this was a capitalist company, we’d be the executive committee. But since it’s not, we’re just three guys. You know what I do. Mouton handles the finances, and Tissot is the product guy. You’re seeing Mouton next, right?”

  Jean Mouton was a trim fifty with a military haircut and military wire-rim glasses. He pumped Capucine’s hand vigorously and led her to a plain pine table that served as a desk.

  “I’m the only one on the management team who came after what’s known around here as the Glorious Takeover. Roque realized he couldn’t do without the banks. Someone has to finance inventories and deal with the suppliers.”

  “That must have been a tough job to fill. There can’t be all that many qualified financial managers who are members of the Communist Party.”

  “More than you’d think. I was working for a group that published four Communist magazines. I jumped at the chance to come here because I wanted to be close to physical production—you know, something being made, not just words—and I wanted to be in a building filled with good, honest people I’d enjoy having a beer with, not guys with complicated, over-intelligent ideas, even if their hearts were in the right place. I’m sure that makes no sense to you.”

  “Actually, it does. That’s more or less why I joined the police.”

  “The police!”

  Mouton was genuinely shocked. Capucine told herself that you never really knew how deep the gulf was until you walked right up to the edge of the precipice and looked down.

  “Is the company as solvent as the press tells us?”

  “It’s in no danger whatsoever of collapse, if that’s what you’re trying to discover. We make a profit, but not enough if we had shareholders who expected a return. But we don’t, so that’s not a problem.”

  “So you have no capital cushion? That must make you a poor sleeper.”

  “We do have a cushion. The way the restructuring worked is that the banks and the shareholders waived all claims. A new company was formed, and the shares were divided among the workers. Also a consortium of three private investors offered a pool of debt funds that was the cash nut that allowed the company to go forward. Those loans are technically interest bearing, but they are so subordinated that the interest is only due if there is the ability to pay it.”

  “And how did you find such a benevolent group of investors?”

  “That was before my time. The consortium was already in place when I got here.” He gave Capucine a hard look that did not completely mask his defensiveness. “And there’s nothing benevolent about them. They’re capitalists who extended us a perfectly straightforward financial product.”

  Guillaume Tissot could easily have passed for a poet. In his checked shirt and tight jeans, it became quickly obvious that he was continually half focused on some distant horizon that only he saw.

  He explained his job dreamily. “I’m the guy that figures out what we make. I used to make suggestions to Roque and we’d decide together, but now I guess I’ll have to do it all by myself.”

  “How does that work? Do you go and interview clients and do market research?”

  “Oh no, that would be too much like capitalist marketing. We just make things we like. Every now and then I walk through the warehouse, and if there are too many of any given product, we just stop making it for a while.” He paused, lost in thought, got to where he wanted to go, and floated back to the conversation. He looked at Capucine as if he was surprised to see her still there. “You know, it’s easier if I just show you instead of trying to explain it. Anyway, I need to check something in the warehouse. Why don’t you come with me and I’ll show you how the shop floor works?”

  To Capucine’s untutored eye, the factory couldn’t have changed an iota from the eighteenth century. Long tables were stacked with powdery white “blanks” of dishes. Women in late middle age, interspersed with the occasional senior man, sat gossiping cheerfully, decorating the blanks with paintbrushes. The atmosphere was that of a ladies’ bridge party.

  Tissot stopped beside a woman in a florid housedress.

  “Ça va, Huguette?”

  “Pas trop mal, Guillaume. Et toi?”

  The use of first names and the familiar tu to a senior executive was not lost on Capucine.

  Tissot explained that Capucine was a “visitor” from Paris, avoiding all mention of the police, which would have created a snap frost in this world, and asked Huguette to explain what she was doing. Proudly, Huguette showed Capucine her brush, which consisted of a single partridge feather tied to a stick with thread. The feather was dipped in a little pot of light red glaze and gently laid at the end of a stalk that had been painted by Eugénie, who was sitting next to her, using a sable brush.

  Laughing and bouncing with schoolgirl liveliness, Huguette pushed Eugénie aside to make room for Capucine on the bench. She handed Capucine her brush.

  “I can’t do this!” Capucine said with a shriek. “I couldn’t even draw in the maternelle.”

  Huguette ignored her. “It’s not drawing. You just lay the feather down, and it makes a petal.”

  Tissot smiled at her. “I have to check on something. I’ll be back in a little while. If you’re any good at this, I might be making you an offer.” There was polite laughter from those at the table within earshot.

  Huguette guided Capucine’s hand, and a perfect petal was formed, but as Capucine lifted the brush, a small streak of glaze leached out, spoiling the flower.

  “Tant pis,” said Huguette. With indifference, she threw the ruined blank into a plastic bin behind them. She reached for another half-finished blank in the pile on the middle of the table, and they began again.

  On the third attempt Capucine actually managed to finish a flower. During the twenty minutes it took, her ear had become attuned to the pattern of Berrichon patois, and she understood almost three quarters of the exchange at the table. It struck her that this was far from being an unpleasant way to spend one’s day.

  Tissot appeared at her shoulder.

  “Your first plate. That’s quite an achievement. Now you have to sign it, n’est-ce pas, Huguette?”

  Huguette produced an extremely fine-pointed brush and a miniscule pot of black glaze, turned the blank over, and handed the brush to Capucine.

  “You just put your initials or mark or whatever you want on the back.”

  Tissot added, “All our work is signed. Every piece produced at the Faïence carries the mark of the decorator.”

  Their next stop was another long table with a shallow water basin recessed into the middle.

  “This process,” said Tissot, “oddly enough, requires more skill than hand painting. They apply a décalcomanie to the blank. It’s a technique that’s been used since the sixteen hundreds. Now we use a photoreproduction process, and the décalcomanie
s are actually extremely thin plastic, but the process is essentially the same.”

  They watched as a man in his fifties slid a convoluted blue design onto a blank and positioned it with great care.

  “It requires a special touch to do that without tearing the décalcomanie. After it’s dried, the blank is coated with clear glaze, just as we do with the hand-painted ones, and given its final bake in the kiln.”

  The kiln looked like a museum piece. The well-patinated heap of white thermal brick bore a large bronze plaque announcing that it had been inaugurated by one of Louis-Philippe’s ministers in 1836.

  “This is the new kiln, apparently much larger than the one it replaced. It was originally wood fired, but that was changed to gas well before World War II.”

  Six stocky men with bright red faces and thick leather aprons loaded six-foot-high wire racks of dishes into the cavernous kiln.

  “We operate the kiln sixteen hours a day, two shifts, from six in the morning to ten at night. The kiln operators are on a different shift schedule from the other workers,” Tissot explained. “In the last one hundred and seventy-two years the poor old thing has only been shut down twice. Once when it was converted to gas and once when we liberated the plant. When we were squatting in here, the saddest thing was that the kiln was stone cold.”

  “Does it run all night even when there’s nothing in it?” Capucine asked.

  “No. At the end of the second shift the workers turn the gas off, and a timer turns it back on at four in the morning to get it hot for the first shift. But the brick walls are so thick, the temperature barely goes down at night. Actually, I was worried that when we shut down the kiln during the liberation, the bricks might crack when they cooled. The notion of the destruction of our beloved plant kept me from sleeping.”

  “But not the idea of blowing the place up?”

  “Of course not. That would have been for a good cause.”

  CHAPTER 22

  “What are you up to this time, Jacques?” Capucine asked into the telephone, tapping the black-bordered hand-engraved card on her desk at the brigade.

  Monsieur Comte Jacques de la Fournière

  has the immense pain of announcing the demise,

  after a protracted and virulent onslaught of tædium

  vitae, on the 10th of October, Anno Domini MMVII,

  of his most cherished and revered ebullience.

  The wake will be held at 29, quai Anatole France

  on the 18th of October at 8:30 in the evening.

  No flowers

  Evening dress

  It was no secret in the family that Jacques was bored by his money. There was a great deal of it, and it bored him a great deal. He had been an heir to all four of his grandparents’ families, and from the age of majority onward a stream of inheritances had flowed inexorably into the tutelage of his asset manager at Lazard Frères, a kindly and patient gentleman whose calls Jacques systematically refused to take.

  One of the manifestations of his disdain was his apartment, the top floor of a building with a spectacular view of the place de la Concorde. Obeying a psychological dictate—which was far from fully understood by Capucine—Jacques redecorated his cavernous flat at least twice a year, each décor more extravagant than the last, and each presented to a close circle of family and friends at an elaborate dinner.

  “I think I’m missing the point,” Capucine said, rubbing her thumb over the raised printing on the card. “Taedium vitae? Weariness of Life? You?”

  “We are each entitled to our own particular ennui, ma cousine. I’ve been rereading my Huysmans: des Esseintes mourned the temporary loss of his virility at a black dinner, and I’m merely following suit in my own little way.”

  “Ahh,” Capucine sighed. She had written a paper at the lycée on A Rebours—Against the Grain.

  “You see, you’re not missing the point at all. I’m looking forward to seeing you in a disturbingly short black frock with the snaps of your garter belt peeping out from under the hem. And if you want to respect the author, black silk stockings woven with tears would be de rigueur. Why don’t you get here early and we can have a quiet”—Jacques paused for half a beat, and Capucine could imagine his salacious smirk—“tête-à-tête before the festivities get going.”

  Capucine was greeted at the door by Madame de Sansavour, a caterer who was the rage of Paris’s beau monde and who even Alexandre admitted was a highly talented chef. Jacques hired her frequently for his dinners, and she was normally charmed by his eccentricities. But her creased brows glimmered with perspiration, and the corners of her mouth were turned down in an exasperated frown.

  “Monsieur is waiting for you in his room, madame. If you could keep him out of the kitchen for a while, I would be deeply in your debt.”

  Capucine crossed the living room to get to the back of the apartment. The walls had been upholstered in black felt, the armchairs and the sofa were of creamy black leather, the black wall-to-wall carpeting was punctuated with somber Persian rugs, and a black marble fireplace with almost invisible gold veining had been installed, housing a flame made dark purple with some chemical. The room was so overdone, it dripped almost comically with fin de siècle angst.

  As promised, Jacques was in his bedroom, the only room in the flat that was inviolate. As ever, it looked like it might belong to an unwashed student of poetry at the Sorbonne. Jacques sat on his unmade single bed, a dented tin wine cooler containing a single bottle of champagne on a wooden wine crate in front of him. He wore a black ruffled evening shirt and a floppy black velvet bow tie. He stood up when Capucine walked in.

  “Isn’t the living room delightfully horrible? It cost an arm and a leg, particularly the fireplace. But it was worth it.”

  He sat down, patted the bed next to him, and poured Capucine a flute of champagne. He put his hand on her thigh, stockinged in sheer black silk interwoven with little luminescent beads, and stroked appreciatively.

  “You’ve got the stockings right,” he said, squeezing her thigh.

  Jacques refilled his own champagne glass and let his limpid eyes lap over Capucine’s silhouette.

  “So tell me quick before the madding horde arrives, have you made enough of a hash of your current case to get on bended knee and beg for my help?”

  “Not at all. Maman’s joined the team. Her latest craze is having lunches with my brigadiers in proletarian restaurants in the Twentieth. It’s a whole new her.” Capucine laughed happily.

  “And you’re really quite sure you haven’t made your usual balls-up?” Jacques asked, a little more seriously than Capucine would have liked.

  “Au contraire, we’re almost drowning in clues.”

  “Voilà,” said Jacques with his all-knowing Cheshire cat grin. “That’s the difference between the police in fiction and in real life. Fictional detectives always have too many clues. Real live ones never have enough.”

  Madame de Sansavour tapped discreetly on the door.

  “Monsieur de Huguelet has arrived.”

  “No point in pushing Tubby Hubby’s blood pressure into the red zone by letting him catch us in bed together, ma chérie. Let’s greet him in the salon.”

  They followed Madame de Sansavour into the living room, her stiff gait eloquent testimony to her displeasure. Alexandre, a glass of whiskey in hand, studied a jumble of dark etchings over the mantelpiece. Jacques slipped on his evening jacket, smoothed his hair with his hands, and tugged on Capucine’s sleeve to straighten her frock, as if they had both dressed hurriedly at the announcement of Alexandre’s arrival.

  For once Alexandre did not rise to the bait.

  “Your Madame de Sansavour is seriously displeased, Jacques. She is now an official vedette—a star—in the culinary world. I would suggest you not trifle with her.”

  “Asking her to honor one of the great classics of French literature hardly constitutes trifling. I merely suggested she follow Huysmans’s black dinner to the letter and have it served by naked Nubians cla
d only in black silk stockings—”

  “Woven with tears,” Capucine interjected, showing off her leg with an elegant turn of her ankle.

  “Exactly. Woven with tears and worn with black satin mules. Was that too much to ask?”

  Alexandre smiled. “I see your point. There would have been an undeniable charm to that. However, apparently it was the bats that exercised her.”

  “Bats?” Capucine asked.

  “Of course,” Jacques said. “The food is supposed to be all black. So I had a few Seychelles roussettes—you know, those gigantic bats they have—flown out in the diplomatic pouch. And I asked her to make a civet with them. But the silly woman refused. Now I can’t even make ice cubes, because my freezer is packed with bats.” Jacques pouted at the injustice of the world.

  Madame de Sansavour rushed into the room, her brow wrinkled in recrimination and concern. “Monsieur, when I make the risotto with the ‘forbidden rice’ you gave me, it comes out violet, not black. I’ve added squid ink. Now it’s jet-black. Is that all right?”

  “Madame, you are a paragon among chefs. You always know exactly what to do,” Jacques said. “Without you, my life would be no more than a heap of dry ashes.”

  Only partially mollified, Madame de Sansavour retreated to the kitchen.

  “I’m definitely looking forward to this dinner,” Alexandre said. “Who have you invited to your funereal bacchanal?”

  “Familiar faces and some new ones to give the soirée piquant . Of course, Cécile, our nubile childhood playmate, and her enologically inclined consort. There will be a rotund éminence grise from the Ministry of the Interior, so Capucine will have her very own string to pull when she’s thrashing about in the choucroute.”

  Capucine scowled at him.

  “There will be a publishing luminary, scion of a great family, who owns any number of magazines and publishing houses. He’s recently become a widower and is making his first timid steps into le beau monde to mend his heart. And, of course, a femme fatale, an unknowable woman of great allure and infinite layers, which, when peeled away one by one, eventually reveal a gossamer veneer of La Perla lace, complete with straps and stockings. But once that’s removed, poof, there’s nothing left.”