Monsieur Pamplemousse Takes the Train

by Michael Bond

  ‘Home made … on the premises?’ In his experience ‘home made’ was often a euphemism for a superior brand of factory prepared food.

  ‘Signore!’ Reproach was evident in the patron’s eyes.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse expressed sorrow that such a thought should have entered his mind.

  ‘Then, tonight, we have ossobuco. It is served with risotto.’

  ‘Risotto milanese? With saffron and Parmesan cheese?’

  The owner nodded with pleasure.

  ‘And the ossobuco … it comes with the long thin spoon for extracting the very last of the bone marrow?’

  ‘The “tax agent”? Sì, signore.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse beamed back at him. It was a genuine little corner of Italy and no mistake. He reached for his notebook, then thought better of it. He might need all his powers of concentration. No matter. Perhaps when it was all over he would pay the restaurant a return visit.

  He was tempted to ask if the owner’s wife was in any way related to Uncle Caputo. It was possible. If such were the case she might even know the Director’s wife. That would explain why there was no mention of the establishment in Le Guide. The Director would fall over backwards rather than be accused of nepotism by any of his rivals.

  ‘Maria will join you later …’ The patron was about to leave when he suddenly broke off and stared towards the window, almost as though he had seen a ghost.

  Following the direction of his gaze, Monsieur Pamplemousse felt his own heart miss a beat. Scarcely a metre away from him two faces were peering into the restaurant through a gap in the curtains. Even without the dark glasses one of them was clearly recognisable as the man on the train. His eyes were dark, steely grey and totally expressionless.

  As they disappeared from view the owner crossed himself and hurried to the door, returning a moment later followed by the two men. As they headed towards Monsieur Pamplemousse’s corner, he made a half-hearted attempt to bar their way.

  ‘Signore. The tables in the window are reserved.’

  ‘Grazie.’ The shorter of the two men pushed past him, picked up the two Reservé notices and tossed them on to the floor. An uneasy silence descended on the restaurant.

  Il Blobbo, the long, thin one, seated himself on Monsieur Pamplemousse’s right and spoke first.

  ‘How are things in the funeral business?’ he asked.

  The short, fat one laughed as he seated himself on the other side. It was not a pleasant sound.

  Glancing at his reflection in the mirror, Monsieur Pamplemousse saw only too well what was meant by the remark. He also caught sight of something silver sticking out of Il Blobbo’s top pocket. It looked like the end of a hat pin.

  Gradually the chatter in the main body of the room started up again, but as he sat very still, waiting for his spaghetti all’acciuga to arrive, Monsieur Pamplemousse realised that the singing in the kitchen had stopped.

  8

  IN THE SOUP

  Monsieur Pamplemousse was still waiting for his first course some twenty minutes later. All he had to show for his pains was a plateful of crumbs and some screwed-up paper left over from the supply of grissini.

  He made the final stick last as long as possible; which was more than could be said for the bottle of wine. It was one of the newer, lighter Sicilian blends, unclassified for lack of ancestry. Pleasant enough, but as the picture beneath the name suggested, it was meant to be quaffed along with the food of the region, not drunk purely and simply as an apéritif. Food of any region would have been a welcome bonus.

  He eyed a symbolic loaf of the local bread which occupied a place of honour on the counter. It was shaped like a three-breasted woman. He wondered what would happen if he went across and broke one of them off to assuage his hunger. Would it cease to be a symbol of prosperity?

  It was good to find a restaurateur who had pride in his origins, but as time passed he couldn’t help wondering if the connection went deeper than that. Perhaps not as a ‘soldier’ who had been through the ceremony and was on a percentage – he would need to have committed a murder for that, and he didn’t look the type – but perhaps as an unpaid ‘associate’; someone with a ‘connection’. If that were the case he couldn’t expect any help from that direction.

  More than once Monsieur Pamplemousse tried to catch the owner’s attention, but he was clearly avoiding that end of the room. As soon as there was the slightest sign of a hand being raised he rushed out into the kitchen. Once, Monsieur Pamplemousse saw what he took to be Mamma Mia herself staring straight at him through the hatch. It was hard to tell what she was thinking. Her expression was a mixture of frustration and consternation, and when he caught her eye she, too, crossed herself.

  Shortly afterwards a small boy he took to be a member of the family emerged and passed through the restaurant. He returned a few minutes later armed with a large packet partly concealed beneath his jacket. It was impossible to see what was written on the side. Perhaps he had been out for his own supper?

  Monsieur Pamplemousse’s hunger pangs grew worse as he watched the others around him tuck in to their food. Mounds of pasta melted away before his gaze; plates were wiped clean with large chunks of bread. One party in a far corner of the room even had the gall to return a dish of pollo ripieno alle noci only half eaten. The walnut stuffing, according to the host, had overwhelmed the delicate taste of the chicken. Apologies were profuse. They were allowed another choice and it arrived within minutes.

  The men on either side of him had been served almost straight away by a young waitress; a comely, if taciturn girl, who apparently suffered badly from a disease common to her calling. Galloping myopia. She reached past Monsieur Pamplemousse as though he didn’t exist.

  The thin one, the one on the train – Il Blobbo, ate his bowl of ravioli slowly and with precision, savouring each and every mouthful as though he had all the time in the world. The short, fat one gobbled his down noisily, as though there were no tomorrow. Both methods were a form of torture.

  Apart from their opening remark, neither had uttered a word during the whole time they had been there. The chill which had entered the establishment on their arrival gradually permeated the room, communicating itself from table to table like a slow-moving cloud of dry ice.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Monsieur Pamplemousse broke the silence.

  ‘Because we are hungry.’ Once again it was the thin one who spoke first.

  ‘Sì. Abbiamo molto fame.’ His companion showed a mouthful of pasta. A dribble of olive oil landed on his tie and began to spread.

  ‘Does your friend always speak with his mouth full?’ asked Monsieur Pamplemousse.

  The first man allowed himself the ghost of a smile.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse tried again. ‘What have you done with the girl?’

  Both men stopped eating and stared at him as though he had said something totally outrageous. He watched their reflection in the mirror as they exchanged a quick glance.

  The fat one nudged the other. ‘You know something? He’s a joker. He could be flavour of the month.’

  ‘You realise I could call for help.’

  The man he had christened Il Blobbo reached for a bottle of Pellegrino. He poured the water slowly and carefully into his glass.

  ‘But you won’t.’

  Something about the total arrogance of the man suddenly made Monsieur Pamplemousse’s gorge rise.

  ‘So, what is keeping you? Why don’t you get on with it? Do you enjoy playing games?’

  His outburst fell on stony ground. Neither man paid him the slightest attention. They just carried on eating.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse went back to examining his empty wine bottle, wondering about the possibility of making a break for it. The thin one was right, of course. Hemmed in as he was between the two of them, he wouldn’t get out from behind the table, let alone reach the door. It was a game of cat and mouse. He glanced around the restaurant. One thing was certain. He wouldn’t receive much help from the
other occupants either. And why should he expect any? They were mostly locals, out for a quiet night with their family. They wouldn’t want to be involved.

  Perhaps it was a case of being wise after the event, or accepting what should have been obvious from the start, but seeing the two men together at close quarters, they both had their origins written all over them. Hoodlums in black suits. It was a sort of uniform, the kind of clothing other people kept for weddings and funerals: almost like a badge of office. The Mafia was nothing if not conservative.

  But if what the Director had said were true – that there was nothing more dishonourable for a member of the Cosa Nostra than to be involved in prostitution – and his own limited experience confirmed the fact, then what were they up to? Why were they in Paris?

  Their arrogance came naturally to them, but was it not overlaid with something else? Once again, he found himself searching for the right word. Unease? Fear? Despite their outward show of indifference, they were definitely on edge about something. The fat one’s nails were bitten almost to the quick. Monsieur Pamplemousse decided to have another go.

  ‘Don’t tell me you have no idea where the girl is either? Is that why you have been following me?’

  It was number two’s turn to speak first. He looked at his partner and winked.

  ‘No flies on his nose, eh?’

  The thought made him laugh so much he nearly choked. It gave Monsieur Pamplemousse no small pleasure to see the man’s tie land in his pasta.

  He decided that perhaps the best thing to do was sit back and see what happened. If he waited long enough he might even get served.

  ‘Encore!’ Seeing the waitress approaching his side of the room, Monsieur Pamplemousse pointed to the bottle.

  Settling back in his seat again, he happened to glance towards the window and as he did so he caught a momentary glimpse of something black and wet pressed against the outside of the glass. It took all his self-control not to register the fact. At first sight it looked not unlike one of the truffles he had brought back from Italy; a tuber melanosporum from Périgord, rather than the Piedmont variety, but there the resemblance ended.

  It struck Monsieur Pamplemousse that Pommes Frites – for there was no doubt in his mind as to the ownership of what at second glance was clearly a nose – wore his enigmatic expression. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second and there wasn’t the faintest flicker of recognition. The fact didn’t bother him unduly, for he knew Pommes Frites was too well trained to give the game away. All the same, it would have been nice to have some reaction. A reassuring bang on the restaurant door with a paw perhaps, or even a faint howl of sympathy from further along the street wouldn’t have come amiss in the circumstances.

  But Monsieur Pamplemousse waited in vain. There was no indication that Pommes Frites had the slightest intention of joining him. Perhaps, unlike his master, he had managed to grab a bite to eat somewhere, or perhaps he simply didn’t fancy what was on the menu; Pommes Frites had never been deeply into pasta. As it was, he had simply disappeared into the night. One moment he was there, the next moment he wasn’t. To all intents and purposes the brief incident might never have taken place.

  Nevertheless, the sight gave Monsieur Pamplemousse cause for hope. At least he wasn’t entirely on his own. He also knew that whatever else happened, Pommes Frites wouldn’t let him down. Doubtless he had his own very good reasons for holding his fire.

  As a summing-up, it would have pleased Pommes Frites had he been there to share it, for it would have confirmed the rightness of his decision to become the follower rather than the followed; a role for which he was admirably suited.

  Pommes Frites’ thought processes might have been slow, but nobody could say they weren’t thorough. Having, over a period of time, weighed all the facts at his disposal, adding a tiny morsel here, removing another one there, the scales of his computer-like brain had come down heavily on the debit side, and the brief glimpse he’d had of the scene inside the restaurant confirmed his worst fears.

  Not for the first time in their long relationship, he found himself entertaining fears about his master’s sanity. Hobnobbing with villains was one thing, but actually sitting down to eat with them was something else again.

  After such a long and concentrated spell of hard thinking, it was good to be seeing a bit of action again. Time had passed all too slowly since Monsieur Pamplemousse had let him out of the apartment that morning. The first half an hour or so he had spent doing the rounds. Doors opened for him, as they always did; the lady in the boulangerie had given him a croissant – yesterday’s baking if he was any judge, although he was hardly in a position to complain; the man in the boucherie had found him a few scraps of beef and veal; but after that there was nothing much else to do except wait patiently in the gardens opposite for his master to make the next move.

  That it had all started during the train journey to Paris was beyond doubt. That it had to do with the girl Monsieur Pamplemousse had met was equally obvious. It was an all too familiar pattern of events; the kind of mathematical equation he knew off by heart. Monsieur Pamplemousse + girl = trouble.

  From the moment they had stepped off the train things had gone from bad to worse. All in all, Pommes Frites wasn’t surprised Madame Pamplemousse appeared to have left home. The only good thing about it was that she hadn’t been around to see the state his master had been in when he arrived back that morning – having been out all night! Nor had she seen her dress. If she had seen her dress with its tear all the way down the back there would have been hell to pay. Pommes Frites could picture the scene, although he tried very hard not to.

  Then there were the baddies. Pommes Frites could tell a baddie from a kilometre away.

  Part of his early training with the Sûreté had been to sniff them out. It had been one of the easier parts of his induction course and he had passed it with flying colours. Baddies always had a particular odour about them; you could smell them coming before they even turned a corner. The fact that Monsieur Pamplemousse was at that moment sandwiched between two examples of the very worst kind only served to intensify Pommes Frites’ resolve. One way and another, for reasons best known to himself, his master had decided to ‘go it alone’, but that, to Pommes Frites’ way of thinking, didn’t necessarily mean he shouldn’t be around to keep an eye on things, ready to act the moment he was needed.

  That moment appeared to have arrived.

  The same Saturday evening traffic that had helped him follow his master’s 2CV all the way down from Montmartre now worked against him, slowing him down when all he wanted was to reach his destination with all possible speed. Tourists, wandering aimlessly along the pavement in twos and threes, attracted by the lights and the sound of music from Les Halles, conspired to impede his progress. Some even went out of their way to try and stop him.

  Tiring of his constant battle against the odds, Pommes Frites took a sharp turn off the boulevard Sebastopol into the rue de Turbigo and entered the underground network of high speed one-way roads which ran below the Forum. Ignoring the hooting of passing motorists, he hugged the side of the tunnel and emerged a few minutes later opposite the Pont Neuf, where he seized the chance to draw breath while waiting for the traffic lights to change in his favour. On familiar territory at long last, it was possible to relax for a moment or two.

  Once he had crossed the Seine and reached the safety of the Isle de la Cité, Pommes Frites trotted to the far side, opposite the Left Bank, and then headed off at a brisk pace along the Quai des Orfèvres, confident in his own mind that when he reached his destination his reception would, as always, be welcoming.

  His confidence was not misplaced. Seeing him approach, one of the Gendarmes on duty emerged from his perspex sentry box and saluted. Then he gave an inquiring look. Clearly, if Pommes Frites saw fit to arrive on a Saturday night minus his master, something must be very much amiss.

  If the reception being accorded to Pommes Frites at the Headquarters of the Paris Sûret
é came under the heading of ‘welcomes, hearty’, the same could not be said of the manner in which Monsieur Pamplemousse greeted the arrival at long last of his first course. To say he radiated disappointment would have been to put it mildly.

  From the reverential manner in which the owner of the restaurant had borne the food to his table, it looked as though he had been entrusted with some rare and exquisite ambrosial offering contained in a dish made of the most precious and fragile Limoges porcelain imaginable. Monsieur Pamplemousse’s taste buds, already on triple time, braced themselves for something special indeed, the spilling of which would have incurred not just the wrath of Mamma Mia, who was anxiously watching her spouse’s every movement through the hatch, but the anger of the Gods themselves.

  He glared at the china bowl which had been set before him. ‘I did not order this,’ he exclaimed. ‘There must be some mistake.’

  ‘It is a very special dish, signore. For you. It is pastino in brodo – a speciality of the house.’

  ‘There is nothing remotely special about alphabet soup,’ growled Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘in this house or in any other. For children, perhaps. But for a fully grown, extremely hungry adult – an adult moreover, who has been promised spaghetti all’acciuga in salsa d’arancia, then it is very ordinary!’ He looked around the restaurant. ‘And if, as you say, it is a speciality of the house, why has no one else ordered it?’

  Grasping a spoon, he emphasised each and every point with a jab at the contents of the bowl, causing the liquid to swirl up and engulf the pasta letters until they formed a tangled heap in the centre.

  ‘Mamma mia!’ The owner clasped his head in both hands, raising his eyes to Heaven.

  ‘Please offer her my apologies,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, mindful of the fact that it might be wise not to upset the kitchen staff too much, for fear they might try and get their own back later in the meal (Guilot swore he had once witnessed an irate chef in Marseille doing unspeakable things to some bouillabaisse destined for a customer who had complained about the quality of his first course), ‘but tell her I shall wait for the dish you first recommended.’