Monsieur Pamplemousse On Location

by Michael Bond

  ‘This is a take. Let’s make it a good one.’

  The clapper boy rushed on.

  ‘Cue action.’

  Joseph and Nicodemus entered shot carrying the body of Jesus, wrapped now in linen cloths to cover the wounds left by the soldiers. A strong smell of burial spices – a mixture of myrrh and aloes – mingled with that of human sweat. Placing the body reverently on a slab just inside the cave, they quickly withdrew and took hold of the rock. Their bodies glistened as it threatened to roll past its mark and they took up the strain.

  ‘Cut!’

  Everyone waited patiently while Von Strudel, Jean-Paul, the second director and others went into a huddle. Monsieur Pamplemousse looked around. It was as though time had stopped. Everyone had frozen in their position. In the short length of time it had taken to run the scene the sun had already set. The surrounding ruins, pockmarked and shadowy, had taken on the appearance of a gaunt and eyeless audience.

  ‘OK. Print it.’

  ‘Thank you, everyone.’

  ‘Ja. Zat vas good.’

  An almost audible sigh of relief went up all round the set as everyone relaxed and began talking at once.

  Jean-Paul turned to his crew. ‘Merci. Terminez… Emballer… Wrap it up.’

  The words were hardly out of his mouth when the lights all round the entrance to the cave suddenly went out. For a moment or two there was chaos. Voices came out of the darkness. ‘Merde! Sacré bleu! Scheibe! What the …’

  Just as suddenly they came on again. Jean-Paul hurried back on to the set. ‘Some imbécile must have tripped over a breaker switch. The plug had been pulled out.’

  ‘Thank Christ it wasn’t during the take.’ The Assistant Director’s shake of the wrist echoed everyone’s feelings. ‘OK. Strike the rock.’

  A prop man ambled on and trundled the stone away with one hand. It bounced on some pebbles, then rolled over on to its side, jogging up and down as it settled. He raised a laugh by adopting a ‘muscle-man’ stance.

  ‘What would we do without polystyrene?’ said Beaseley.

  ‘You don’t think …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Je n’en sais pas.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse suddenly felt uneasy, that was all. He had no idea why.

  ‘All films are an illusion,’ said Beaseley. ‘The quickness of the shot deceives the eye. Half the time the screen is blank anyway. If man hadn’t been born with persistency of vision someone would have had to invent it …’

  Beaseley’s theme remained undeveloped as their attention was suddenly distracted by an outbreak of chatter from the mouth of the cave.

  ‘C’est impossible!’

  ‘Hey, everyone, come and look at this!’

  ‘Jesus!’

  ‘Mein Gott!’ Von Strudel pushed his way to the front of the group and stared into the darkness. For once he seemed at a loss for words.

  ‘I think,’ said Beaseley, as he and Monsieur Pamplemousse joined the others and craned their necks to see what was going on, ‘that what we have is a classic case of the “Old Mother Hubbards”.’

  ‘Comment?’

  ‘Old Mother Hubbard,’ said Beaseley, ‘went to the cupboard, to fetch her poor dog a bone. But when she got there, the cupboard was bare, and so the poor dog had none. For bone, read Brother Angelo. In short, we are witnessing yet another attack of the dreaded bugginks!’

  6

  THE SACRIFICE

  It hadn’t taken Monsieur Pamplemousse long to find what he was looking for: a gelatin filter lying on the ground near the Ark. It was slightly blackened in the middle from the heat of a lamp – which was probably why it had been discarded – the dark patch would change the colour temperature of the light – but it was ideally suited to his purpose: tough yet pliable.

  It took him even less time to put it to good use. Crouching down, he bent one edge of the plastic slightly, then slipped it behind the stop batten of the door frame and round between the casing and the leading edge of the door itself, applying pressure at the same time so that it slid even further between the two. Luckily, as with most modern exterior doors, slight warping had taken place, leaving a larger gap near the bottom than there was halfway up. The lock was a standard cylinder rim type, identical to the one on his own trailer. Nothing special. There was no deadlock bolt – neither the automatic variety nor the kind which was operated by a second turn of the key. It was an open invitation to anyone with an old credit card – or a discarded gelatin filter found on a film location.

  He slid the plastic up the gap, once again applying pressure. The higher he went the more resistance he encountered. The first time it jammed just below the lock. He changed the angle slightly and tried again with one swift, sweeping motion. This time it slid between the rounded bolt and the staple. There was a satisfactory click as the mechanism responded. The bolt slid back into the body of the lock and the door swung open.

  Probably at that very moment there were other equally satisfactory clicks taking place all over the world. He knew from his time in the Sûreté that Friday night in Paris was always a particularly busy night for the police, with people going off for the week-end and leaving their apartments unattended. Except it wasn’t Paris, and he would have been as hard put to justify what he was doing as any common or garden cambrioleur.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse took a quick look over his shoulder to make sure no one else was around. The next moment he was inside Brother Angelo’s trailer, closing the door gently behind him.

  Only after he had made absolutely certain that the curtains were tightly drawn did he turn on his torch. His Cupillard Rième watch showed 1.18.

  The trailer was basically identical to his own, if considerably less tidy. There were discarded magazines strewn everywhere. Unwashed glasses stood where they had been left. The remains of long since melted ice-cubes gave off an odour of whisky. There was also a smell of stale cigar smoke, Cigar smoke and … Monsieur Pamplemousse sniffed … powder rather than perfume.

  He made his way through the kitchen to the back end of the trailer. The make-up area had certainly been put to good use. The table was littered with discarded tissues. The waste bucket was chock-a-block. Whoever had the task of clearing up in the morning was in for a busy time. He checked the bath and the washbasin. Neither appeared to have used recently. The towels felt dry.

  He slid open the cupboard doors. It was hard to say if any clothes were missing. The hanging wardrobe was reasonably full, as were the drawers below it; socks, underclothes, monogrammed handkerchiefs … all the things one might expect. Perhaps they weren’t as full as they might have been, but they were nowhere near empty either. There were certainly no telltale signs of a hasty packing. There was nothing hidden behind the hanging clothes, nothing in any of the pockets, nothing untoward tucked away in any of the drawers.

  He drew a blank in the kitchen area. Apart from a few vegetables in the bottom drawer, the refrigerator was empty. The end of a baguette lay dry and abandoned on the working area. Alongside it was an open tin containing a few black olives. They were from the ubiquitous Monsieur Arnaud.

  There was some unwashed crockery in the sink. Two of everything.

  Hoping it might prove more productive than the rest of the trailer, Monsieur Pamplemousse went back into the main area and began an inch by inch search of the room.

  In a sense he was hampered by not having the remotest idea what he hoped to find. It was easier to say what he wasn’t looking for.

  If Ron Pickles’s disappearance had been planned, it was doubtful if he would have left any evidence of that fact behind. Everything he had seen so far bore all the hallmarks of someone who had nothing to conceal. That being so, there was no point in looking for conventional hiding-places – inside hollow brass curtain rods, objects taped to the underside of drawers or wrapped in aluminium foil and put inside the freezer compartment of the refrigerator.

  Also, space being at a premium, a trailer lacked many of the possibilities of an ordinary house – the
glass fibre insulation between the roof rafters, for example, made a good hiding place; or fake plumbing – a false plastic waste pipe could hold a surprising amount. Luxurious the trailer might be, but everything about it was starkly functional. It had to perform a useful task, or else …

  Hollowed-out books? The only book he could see was, rather surprisingly, an English edition of Daudet’s Letters from a Windmill, a slim volume, one page of which was marked by a ticket stub from a show called the Cathédrale d’Images which was taking place in one of the local disused bauxite mines. Prix d’Entrée 33F Adulte. Neither the book nor the Cathédrale d’Images sounded exactly Ron Pickles’s cup of tea. There was really no predicting other people’s tastes.

  He came across a second book on the floor beside the bed, a guide to the area, again in English. A section devoted to the Massif de la Sainte-Baume, west of Marseille, was marked by a tourist’s brochure describing the delights of Fontvieille. There was a picture of Daudet’s windmill on the front. It must have been picked up in Fontvieille itself because it bore the stamp of the Office de Tourisme. Perhaps Daudet’s letters had made an effect on Brother Angelo?

  A waste-bucket in a corner of the room yielded up a half-used packet of book matches bearing the name of a restaurant called La Croissant d’Or in the coastal town of Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, some screwed-up pages of script on yellow paper, and three more ticket stubs for the Cathédrale d’Images. Monsieur Pamplemousse wondered who Brother Angelo’s companions had been. Mangetout, along with the Swedish au pair and the child? Except all the tickets were marked Adulte.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse shone the torch on to his watch again. The search had taken over half an hour. There wasn’t a lot to show for it.

  He lay back on the bed turning the problem over in his mind, trying to picture what, if anything, his search had yielded. He looked in vain for a common link between a windmill, a meal by the sea, a walk in the mountains and a visit to a show. They were all ordinary enough: the kind of outings anyone might make if they were staying in the area and had time to spare.

  And yet … and yet somehow that didn’t ring true. None of the parties involved was exactly ordinary. None could have had that much time to spare. Mangetout kept herself so much to herself she made the late Marlene Dietrich look like Zsa Zsa Gabor, and from all he’d seen of Brother Angelo, he didn’t exactly court being seen in public. He must dread going out at times. Worse than being royalty. At least they weren’t besieged by autograph hunters.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse switched off the torch and closed his eyes. The window must be open a fraction, for above the hum of the air-conditioning and the faint sound of the generator he could hear music in the distance – a guitar and a girl singing – coming from the camp site where all the fans were living.

  He wasn’t sure how long he had been lying there … fifteen minutes? … twenty? … when he heard a noise. It was the faint, but unmistakable rasping sound made by a key being pushed very gently through the pin tumblers of a door lock.

  Mentally cursing himself for not throwing the bolt after he had entered, Monsieur Pamplemousse lay where he was, his right hand grasping the edge of the bed, ready to spring up at a second’s notice. With his other hand he searched for the torch.

  There was a shaft of moonlight, momentarily obscured by a shadowy figure, then the key was quickly withdrawn and the door closed again. Fully expecting the room to be flooded with light, Monsieur Pamplemousse braced himself. But instead, the newcomer moved swiftly across the room and leant across the bed as though searching for something. He felt the other person’s warmth and there was a smell similar to the one he had noticed earlier, only much stronger this time. Resisting the temptation to reach up, he held his breath. There was a sudden gasp as whoever it was realised they were not alone.

  ‘Tu!’ The cry was one of pleasurable surprise rather than fear.

  The figure straightened.

  ‘Mon chou! Mon chou!’

  Something heavy was discarded.

  ‘Mon chou!’ There was a wriggle as something lighter went the same way. A moment later he felt a body pressing itself against him: warm, sensuous, alive. Inviting lips sought his. Hands reached out and down …

  The moment ended even faster than it had begun. The gasp this time was of total horror. The figure leapt from the bed and made a wild dash for safety. The door shot open and slammed shut again.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse struggled to his feet. There was a thump as something heavy landed on the floor. Groping around, he made contact with his torch and switched it on.

  A crumpled silk négligé lay in a heap where it had been abandoned. Beneath it was a top coat of some kind. He bent down. The négligé bore a La Perla label. Hardly what one might have expected anyone from the camp site to be wearing. On the other hand, he would have been willing to swear on oath that his visitor hadn’t been Mangetout. It had been someone a good deal younger. He picked up the coat and was about to discard it when something prompted him to feel in the side pockets.

  The first one contained a key, the second a ticket stub. It was yet another for the Cathédrale d’Images. There was a number across the top – 067174. He compared it with the numbers on those he had already found. One of them was 067175. It was only then that he realised that none of the other three numbers were consecutive. Brother Angelo must have been by himself when he went there on the other occasions.

  Taking one last look round the room, Monsieur Pamplemousse let himself out. There was no point in lingering.

  Closing the door gently behind him, he stood for a moment or two pressed hard against the side of the trailer, merging with the shadows, but nothing moved.

  The night air was heavy with the smell of lavender and herbs. Cicadas were in full throat. Les Baux, starkly white and pockmarked by day, looked impossibly romantic in the moonlight; the twinkling lights gave it the appearance of some huge ocean liner sailing into the night. Romantic and at the same time still charged with horrors of the past. Its jagged outline against the night sky was like an illustration from a fairy tale by the brothers Grimm; a reminder that it was from the top of those very same rocks that Raymond de Turenne had rounded off his evenings by forcing prisoners to leap to their death. Their screams must have echoed round the Val d’Enfer, drowning the drunken laughter.

  The heat was oppressive. In the distance, beyond the perimeter of the lot, he could see lights coming from the area where the extras were camping out, and there was the occasional flicker of a camp fire. Many of the fans had already left, but there was still a large body of those eager to see things out to the bitter end. The music sounded louder now and the mood had changed; it was somehow more restless, like the voice of a tormented being.

  Detecting a glimmer of light in Mangetout’s trailer, Monsieur Pamplemousse moved away in the opposite direction, making a detour round the back of the other vehicles. He thought he heard a baby crying somewhere. It stopped as quickly as it had begun. It could have been the plaintive cry of a sheep.

  As he rounded the far corner of Gilbert Beaseley’s quarters he almost collided with someone coming the other way.

  It was the Director. A Director, moreover, who was clutching his right eye as though in pain.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Pamplemousse. I have been looking for you everywhere.’

  ‘Is there something wrong, Monsieur?’

  ‘Wrong?’ repeated the Director. ‘Wrong? I have been attacked!’

  ‘Attacked?’ As was so often the case with his chief, Monsieur Pamplemousse found himself reduced to echoing the other’s words.

  ‘Attacked,’ repeated the Director. ‘I must admit, when I found a certain person occupying your quarters I thought the worst, but in no way did it prepare me for what transpired.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse stared at him. ‘There is someone in my trailer, Monsieur?’

  It was the Director’s turn to gaze in disbelief. ‘You are not trying to plead innocent, Pamplemousse?’

  �
��I give you my word, Monsieur.’

  ‘Come, come, Aristide, you know me better than that. In matters of love and war, everything is fair. The best man has won. Let us say no more about it.’

  ‘I repeat, Monsieur, I have no idea what you are talking about.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse might just as well have saved his breath. The Director had clearly got the bit between his teeth and did not intend letting go until he’d had his say.

  ‘Unable to sleep for whatever reason – I think possibly it was the noise of the music – if that is the word to describe what sounds more like the cacophonous ramblings of those on whom the full moon has had an adverse effect – I got dressed and went for a walk. I found myself irresistibly drawn towards Les Alpilles and I went further than I had originally intended.

  ‘When I returned, I have to admit that in approaching the site from a different direction I found myself totally disoriented. Seeing a chink of light coming from your quarters, I thought I would call in for a chat. I knocked on your door several times, but to no avail, and I was about to go on my way when to my surprise it was opened by none other than Mangetout. I was so taken aback it took me a moment or two to recognise her.

  ‘The light, Pamplemousse, was the only thing she had on.

  ‘It was a case of having to think on my feet. I pretended I had come to ask for her autograph. It was the best I could do on the spur of the moment. Clearly she did not have a plume about her person, and I was in the act of looking for mine when she attacked me. I cannot begin to tell you the language she used. I was lucky to make good my escape.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse stared at the Director. ‘Mangetout was in my trailer?’ he repeated. ‘But that is not possible.’

  ‘Pamplemousse,’ the Director put a hand to his face again, ‘there is no need to pretend. I know she is there. I saw her with my own eyes – as large as life and twice as powerful. I fully understand why you feel the need to be on your own for a while. Doubtless your batteries need recharging. Have no fear, the matter shall remain a secret between us. C’est la vie. I hope I am man enough to accept defeat gracefully.’