Monsieur Pamplemousse Takes the Train

by Michael Bond

  ‘Blackmail? Someone demanding a ransom? You know as well as I do we’ve got ways of dealing with that kind of thing. You only have to say the word.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse shook his head.

  ‘Vice? Porno movies? Is that why you were asking all those questions earlier on?’

  ‘If you start by thinking the worst,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘anything else has to be better.’

  ‘True. Well, I’ll tell you something. If it has got anything to do with any of that and someone has got hold of her, they’re not going to let go in a hurry. Anyway, what makes you think along those lines?’

  ‘She is young, pretty, ambitious. She wants to be a model. She made it clear to me that she wishes to escape from her present life.’

  ‘You mean she may have met up with someone like Madame Claude. Remember her?’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse certainly did. In the 1970s Madame Claude had run one of the most fashionable and successful brothels of all time. Heads of state, royalty, millionaires, were said to have paid anything up to 10,000 francs a time for a one-night stand with the ‘companion’ of their choice.

  ‘There could be worse fates,’ said Jacques. ‘If you recall, she chose the girls well – mostly out-of-work dancers or models. And she looked after them – bought their clothes, supervised their make-up, their hair, their lingerie, educated them, arranged for plastic surgery where necessary. Considering the number who went on to marry well, they couldn’t really grumble. It was better than going to a finishing school as far as most of them were concerned. Every time you open one of the glossy journaux there they are, staring out at you.’

  ‘That is hardly the point,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘I agree there might be worse fates, but I would still be held responsible.’

  ‘How about her parents? Have they been told?’

  ‘I was hoping that wouldn’t be necessary.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse hastily tried to change the subject. ‘Are there any Madame Claudes around these days?’

  ‘There will always be Madame Claudes,’ said Jacques. ‘At 25 per cent commission off the top it wasn’t bad going while it lasted. In the end, if you remember, the tax collector presented her with a bill of Fr. 10,000,000 and she fled to America where she opened up a cake shop. When that failed she tried to make a come-back, but Martine Monteuil got her. Good old Martine.’

  ‘The Brigade for the Repression of Pimping strikes again.’

  ‘Who says she was pimping? Most of the girls were only too pleased to be working for her. At least it’s not like it was in the old days. Remember the Corsicans just after the war? If any of the girls played up rough they used to rub coarse sugar into their faces. It played havoc with the make-up before it festered. Nowadays pimps are more discreet. They realise the value of not despoiling the goose that lays the golden eggs; they make sure any major disfigurement takes place where it isn’t likely to be seen until it’s too late.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse began to wonder if he had done the right thing in asking for Jacques’ advice.

  ‘So the answer to my question is no, you don’t know of anything similar going on?’

  ‘Not that I’ve heard of. Mind you, that doesn’t mean to say it doesn’t exist. Discretion is the name of the game in that kind of operation. Half the government would be out of a job if it weren’t. Heads would roll. If you like I’ll put out some feelers when I get back to the office. Give you a ring.’

  ‘Merci.’

  Jacques took one last look at the photographs of Caterina before returning them. ‘And you think the man who was responsible for the murder at the Gare de Lyon – if he was responsible – has something to do with this girl’s disappearance?’

  ‘I think she was desperately trying to avoid him, put it that way.’

  ‘So, if we find our man he may in turn lead you to the girl.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘A real game of cat and mouse.’ Jacques went back to the original photograph. ‘It makes a change from cherchez la femme – although I know which I’d rather do. Care to swap?’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse shook his head. He didn’t feel much like joking.

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ said Jacques, ‘It isn’t a lot to go on. Dark glasses work both ways. They may act as a good cover-up, but they also attract attention. What did he look like without them?’

  ‘Thin-faced. A bit of a Charles Aznavour look-alike. I didn’t get that close a view.’

  ‘That’s something, anyway.’ Jacques took out his notebook.

  ‘How about fingerprints?’ asked Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Anything on the glasses?’

  ‘Fat chance. The frames were too thin.’

  ‘Weapon?’

  ‘He would have held the crown in the ball of his hand. Anything on the business end would have been wiped off when it penetrated.’

  ‘How about trying another source?’

  Jacques gave a deep sigh. ‘Another source!’ he repeated. ‘What other source? Where? Are you holding out on me, Aristide?’

  ‘Earlier this evening,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘I received a telephone call. A hang up. If it was who I think it was, it must have been made from a call-box somewhere near here. I could hear an engine ticking over – it could have been a number 80 autobus waiting at the lights. They have a particular sound to them. In which case I suggest it might be worth checking the phones in the boxes down by the Place Constant Pecqueur … there’s a group of three on this side of the road – nearly opposite the steps leading up from the Lamarck-Culaincourt Metro …’

  Without waiting for him to finish Jacques reached for the phone.

  While he was talking, Monsieur Pamplemousse cleared away the dishes and looked in the refrigerator to see what there was in the way of cheese.

  He unwrapped a small wheel of Coulommiers and a wedge of Roquefort, still half-covered in its silver foil, and put them both on to a plate. There were two strawberry barquettes. Doucette must be psychic.

  If he wasn’t careful Jacques would start asking some awkward questions. Or, worse still, others would start asking Jacques awkward questions, and then the fat would really be in the fire.

  Pommes Frites loitered in the doorway looking hopeful. It was long past his usual dinner time. Monsieur Pamplemousse obliged with a bowlful of biscuits and the remains of some stew he found in a plastic container. Then he returned to the other room.

  Jacques looked up. ‘They’re on their way.’

  The Coulommiers had a distinct Brie-like tang to it; the Roquefort felt firm and smooth as he unwrapped the foil. Monsieur Pamplemousse poured the last of the wine.

  ‘It tastes of sheep.’ Jacques pointed to the Roquefort. It was the kind of grudging back-handed compliment a man from the Rhône valley would pay to a cheese from another département of France. It didn’t stop him cutting a second slice.

  Having polished off the cheese and drained his glass, he disposed of a barquette and then looked at his watch. ‘I must go. Thanks to you, I’ve got work to do.’

  ‘I’ll come down with you – I could do with some fresh air.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse took Pommes Frites’ lead down from its hook and ushered Jacques out into the hall.

  Instinctively leaving the light on, he double-locked the door behind him.

  The lift was still where Jacques had left it. Half the occupants in the block had probably gone away for the weekend, the rest were most likely eating out and wouldn’t be back until late. It was always the same on a Friday night. A feeling of loneliness swept over Monsieur Pamplemousse as the enormity of the task ahead of him struck home.

  Pommes Frites automatically stationed himself just inside the lift, breaking the ray of light to stop the doors closing before his master arrived.

  ‘Look,’ said Jacques, as Monsieur Pamplemousse joined him. ‘I’ll see what I can do – no questions asked. But I can’t promise a lot. The old grapevine is in need of a bit of a watering at the moment. It’s like I said earlier – cleaning things up is
all very well, but it’s really a case of sweeping the dirt under the carpet – it doesn’t go away. In the meantime valuable sources of information have dried up. You’d probably do just as well putting out some feelers in the right quarters yourself.’

  ‘Merci.’ Jacques’ words only served to underline Monsieur Pamplemousse’s current mood.

  As they made their way through the main hall on the ground floor, he glanced through the perspex front of his mailbox. He hadn’t bothered clearing it when he arrived back earlier in the day and it looked full.

  No doubt it was the usual collection of junk; he could list most of it by heart. A selection of cards from various organisations giving numbers to ring in an emergency – everything from a leaking washing-machine to lost keys. Boucheries Roger would be having yet another promotion. Halfway down the pile he spotted a copy of Paris-Le Journal – the free monthly guide to what was happening in the city. On the very top there was a large coloured brochure – most likely from the super marché in rue Marcadet. There would be nothing that couldn’t wait.

  ‘Thanks for the hospitality. I’ll phone you tomorrow if I have any news.’ Jacques slammed his car into reverse, executed a commendable half turn considering the width of the road, then roared off down rue Junot, tyres squealing as he took the bend, heading towards rue Caulaincourt and the telephone kiosks. As his tail lights disappeared from view Monsieur Pamplemousse heard a siren, then it faded away into the distance, deflected by the buildings, and everything went quiet.

  The parc opposite his apartment was closed and he led the way down the road towards the steps leading down to rue Caulaincourt, pausing a couple of times on the way while Pommes Frites obeyed the call of nature.

  If the worst came to the worst they would have to move elsewhere, of course. At least for the time being. Possibly, if he failed to find Caterina, it might mean leaving Paris for good. The Mafia never forgave – or forgot. Doucette would be heartbroken. So would he for that matter. Ambitions to become a member of the Boules de Montmartre team after he retired would remain unfulfilled.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse decided against taking a short cut along the alleyway to his left which ran through to the back of the parc. It was narrow, with no escape routes on either side, and there was no point in taking unnecessary risks.

  He stood for a moment at the top of the steps. Beyond the cobbled area at the bottom he could see a small crowd of spectators gathered round the kiosks – no doubt some of them were chafing at the bit because they wanted to make a call; most would have simply come to stare. There were a couple of squad cars parked nearby, their blue lights winking. The one facing the wrong way probably belonged to Jacques. A flash gun went off. They must be recording the fingerprints in situ as a precaution. Latent prints tended to go off quickly when the weather was cold. After that they would wait for the engineers to arrive in order to remove the actual phones so that they could work in comfort. Anyone who wanted to use them would be in for a long wait.

  But if they left their apartment, where would they go? Would anywhere be safe? Despite the efforts of many, the Mafia still wielded a power which in many parts of the world reached into all corners of life. To be a Godfather was akin to being a feudal lord in ancient times. Their power was absolute. Upsetting them could provoke terminal arrangements.

  Not wishing to get involved in the goings on in the Place, Monsieur Pamplemousse turned right and headed up the hill towards the Sacré-Coeur.

  An occasional car drifted slowly past in the opposite direction, those at the wheel looking in vain for somewhere to park. At one point he took shelter in the narrow space between two vehicles as the last Montmartrobus of the evening swept down the hill towards him, the lights from its windows casting strange shadows on the ivy covered stone wall to his right. It was almost empty.

  As the bus disappeared round a corner at the bottom, Monsieur Pamplemousse took the precaution of moving out into the middle of the road. He had read somewhere that in Italy there was a Mafia murder every ten hours. In America it was probably a lot more. In France? He had no wish to become a statistic in someone’s crime report. Pommes Frites had no such qualms. Glad to be out after being cooped up all the evening, he ran on ahead, reporting back every so often that all was well.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse’s thoughts went back to the murder at the Gare de Lyon. Had he just happened on it? He couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that for some reason or other he might have been a direct cause.

  The conductor was the only person able to shed any light on the subject; possibly the only one apart from himself able to identify the man on the train. If the news of Caterina’s disappearance did leak out he would have been one of the first to be questioned. Better to eliminate any problems before they occurred. The very fact of Monsieur Pamplemousse returning to question the man must have been bad news.

  But why had the murderer followed him back there? Monsieur Pamplemousse had a sudden thought. Supposing the reverse were true. Supposing the man – and his accomplice, whoever he was, were hoping he would lead them to Caterina. They must know by now that he had no idea where she was either? If that were the case, then for the time being at least, he would be safe. It was a Catch-22 situation and no mistake. If the news reached Sicily that Caterina was missing his number would be up. If he found her the same might apply.

  The Place de Tertre was, as always, alive with tourists: noisy, colourful, like the setting from an operetta. Tables spilled out on to terrace and pavement alike; others filled the middle of the square. Surrounding it, artists’ easels supporting ubiquitous pictures of wide-eyed street urchins, or cartoon dogs relieving themselves on walls and lamp-posts to the delight of their colleagues, vied for space alongside others depicting the surrounding landmarks. People sat under acetylene lights having their likeness sketched in charcoal or their silhouette cut out in black paper. Music in the French idiom gushed forth from dimly lit restaurants. Waiters in their white aprons bustled to and fro serving those hardy enough to dine outside beneath the trees.

  Squeezing past a commis waiter carrying an ice-bucket in one hand and balancing a heavily laden tray with the other, Monsieur Pamplemousse was reminded for some unaccountable reason of a trick question his old school mistress, Mademoiselle Antoinette, was fond of asking new pupils: ‘Which freezes first, a bowl of boiling water or a bowl of cold water?’

  Very few ever got it right. Most newcomers automatically plumped for what seemed the obvious answer; the bowl of cold water. They did so on the grounds that it ‘stood to reason, of course’. The old hands looked superior as they grinned at each other.

  He could still see the triumphant gleam in the mistress’s eye as she pointed out there was no ‘of course’ about it, and that in life, ‘reason’ often flew out of the window.

  ‘What reason? Where?’ she would say, looking under her chair.

  The explanation was simple enough. Under most circumstances the bowl of boiling water will turn to ice first. Why? Because it will give off steam and some of the water will evaporate, so that in the end there will be a smaller volume of water left to freeze.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse carried on with the rest of his walk in an even more thoughtful mood than he had when he started. There was something odd about what was happening; something which didn’t quite gel. Was it possible that he, too, was guilty somewhere along the line of letting reason fly out of the window?

  The cobbled street was slippery after the rain, and he kept to the path, pausing every now and then to let a car go past. One way and another he wasn’t sorry to get back to the Place Marcel Aymé.

  If Il Blobbo was still watching the block, he was nowhere in sight. Monsieur Pamplemousse reached for his keys as he entered.

  He hesitated as he passed the mail-box, and as he did so he noticed a small, white card on top of the pile. It hadn’t been there when he went out, of that he was certain.

  Opening the door, he reached inside and removed a plain postcard. It had his name on it, writ
ten in black ink – no address. It must have been slipped into the box while they were out. He turned the card over.

  On the back someone had drawn a crude picture of a coffin.

  6

  THE OLDEST PROFESSION

  ‘Pamplemousse! I fear I have bad news. I did not sleep at all well last night …’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse stared at the telephone receiver in disbelief. Was it possible? Had the Director really woken him up simply to announce that he hadn’t had his full quota of rest? Was there no limit to the chief’s self-centredness? Indignation welled up inside him. Responses had to be choked back for fear he might say something he would afterwards regret.

  He looked at his bedside clock and then relented slightly. It was almost nine-thirty. He must have slept like a log. Although it wasn’t altogether surprising after all that had happened the day before, such a thing hadn’t happened in years. Doucette must be wondering why he hadn’t phoned.

  Controlling his emotions with difficulty, Monsieur Pamplemousse held his fire in order to allow Monsieur Leclercq time to continue with a resumé of cause and effect. He hadn’t long to wait.

  ‘There is worse to come, Pamplemousse.’

  ‘Worse, monsieur?’ Monsieur Pamplemousse made a half-hearted attempt to keep the sarcasm from his voice. ‘The hot water was running slightly cold, peut-être? Your morning croissant was perhaps not quite as fresh as it might have been? The jus d’orange a trifle acidic?’

  A hissing sound indicated that the Director was using his car telephone, so any immediate response was obliterated. As the car emerged from the other side of the tunnel or whatever else it was that had conspired to interrupt their conversation, it became apparent that he was on to another tack, and from his dolorous tones it was clearly one which was causing him considerable alarm.

  ‘… pened this morning, Aristide. I received a postcard through the mail …’