Death in Provence

by Serena Kent

  Dedication

  FOR JOY LAWRENSON AND BRIAN REES,

  who would have been much amused.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  The Plunge

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  The Plunge

  PENELOPE KITE STOOD at the door of her dream home and wiped her brow with the back of her hand. The late morning heat had brought the air to a steamy simmer. August was a hot flash that never subsided.

  Uncut grass stood waist high in the courtyard, and a thousand cicadas sawed their jittery music. Every so often a large wasp built like a military helicopter would break away from the swarm around the fig tree and enter the kitchen in a show of menace.

  She slapped a broken fly swat down onto the thick layer of dust that coated every surface, and missed yet again.

  “What have I done?”

  The stone-flagged kitchen floor offered no reply.

  She sat down on a rickety wooden chair. It creaked ominously. She was definitely going to have to cut back on croissants.

  “What have I done?” she wailed to the walls. Well, you polished off a whole bottle of cheap rosé last night, they seemed to say. That wasn’t clever.

  Her head hurt horribly.

  She had a sinking feeling that she had taken on more than she could chew in this crumbling wreck of a place, and there was no one to blame but herself.

  In the days and weeks afterwards, as she went over and over these crucial hours until they seemed unreal, she would look back on her hot and headachy panic in the kitchen and think that it was nothing compared to what was about to break.

  But Penelope was sure of one thing: she had not left the house to brave the searing brightness of the garden until a couple of hours later. So she could not possibly have known what was floating facedown in the swimming pool.

  1

  IN EARLY SPRING, EVERYTHING HAD been so different.

  Penelope had been energized by the cloudless blue skies of the South of France. Following a particularly gruesome family Christmas with her two children and their badly behaved families, she had escaped an Easter that promised more of the same but with added chocolate. Two wonderfully tranquil weeks in April had left her yearning to stay longer.

  The Côte d’Azur had long since become Wimbledon-sur-Mer, but the Luberon Valley was charming. Penelope had visited this area of Provence many times during the course of her marriage and had always been able to relax in its sunny friendliness, even when her husband was as distant as the top of the long rippled ridge of mountain that hung like a blue curtain behind the ancient hilltop villages. Churches and crumbling fortresses and narrow streets had the slumbering feel of the warm south, and the orchards and vineyards below promised a land of plenty. The pace of life seemed more relaxed, less full of braying expats, especially English ones from the Home Counties.

  By the end of the first week, she had begun to indulge in some delicious daydreams and succumbed to perusing photographs of houses for sale in the estate agency windows. A few days later, after a particularly refreshing carafe of rosé with lunch, she found herself entering the door of an agency in the pretty village of Ménerbes.

  The woman behind the desk nodded as Penelope waited for her to conclude her telephone conversation in leisurely fashion. She was the very epitome of an elegant Parisienne in her forties. Her blond hair bounced in all the right places to flatter a beautifully made-up face that no doubt benefited from all the mysteriously effective processes of French dermatology. The tiny navy-blue jacket, nipped in at the waist, looked like real Chanel, too. She made Penelope feel enormous, and very badly dressed.

  Finally, she replaced the receiver with a flick of the wrist that set the charms on her large gilt bracelet jangling, and assessed her prospective client. It was the kind of look engineered to deter time-wasters. There must be plenty of them about.

  Penelope hoisted her best smile. “Bonjour, madame.”

  “Bonjour. Comment je peux vous aider?”

  A lovely stone house, Penelope told her in faltering French, that was what she was looking for. On a hillside, with a view and a garden—but not too much land. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms. A swimming pool, or space to build one.

  Goodness, thought Penelope. Those daydreams were awfully specific.

  “I have several properties that might interest you,” said the Frenchwoman in perfect English.

  Penelope didn’t know whether to be relieved or annoyed. “Ah, good,” she said.

  “My name is Mme Valencourt. Either you can make an appointment for viewing at a later date. Or—you can come with me now.” She held up a red lacquered fingernail. “Vous avez de la chance, madame. You are very lucky.”

  “I am?”

  “Mais oui, madame.”

  Penelope could only guess what this stroke of luck might be as she was ushered straight out of the office and into a shiny red Mini Cooper that matched the nails. Perhaps she shouldn’t have drunk all that delicious rosé. It had made her bold.

  “We must hurry,” said the estate agent, driving off at speed. With no mercy for other road users, they shot through the narrow streets and out into the countryside, past orchards brimming with snowdrifts of almond blossom. The first acid-green shoots were showing on the gnarled stumps of vineyards. Here and there, men in the fields were bent double in intensive contemplation of crop and soil.

  They swerved violently. Penelope clenched her seat belt in one hand and gripped the door handle with the other, her foot instinctively moving to brake as they overtook a Mercedes into the teeth of an oncoming tractor.

  Apparently oblivious to the cyclists and tourists who lay scattered in her wake, Mme Valencourt kept up a businesslike conversation in which she established Penelope’s credentials as a buyer (clearly satisfactory), history of visits to France, marital status and happiness with the divorce (also apparently satisfactory), and former career (distinct glimmer of respect). The car swept up narrowing roads into the Luberon Mountains, away from the chic villages so beloved of French cabinet ministers, their mistresses, and Paris Match photographers and into a landscape of holm oaks and pines.

  As the road became emptier, Penelope’s heart rate eased slightly.

  “La belle Provence!” announced Mme Valencourt, as they swung onto a potholed track that skirted a wood of scrub oak and spiky juniper bushes. Past a rusted tractor standing in an unkempt field, she stopped the car in front of a stone archway and gestured.

  “Voilà. Le Chant d’Eau. The name of the property is The Song of the Water. It is an old farm.”

  Penelope’s gaze followed her companion’s manicured finger.

  The property was decrepit. A couple of substantial outbuildings were suf
focating under thick ivy. The two-story farmhouse itself was built of pale stone in the traditional style. The wooden window shutters were flaking lavender-coloured paint. Several were hanging askew. Penelope could just picture the way it could be renovated. A lovely summer sitting room, with a terrace for dining under the stars. No, stop it, she told herself, don’t get carried away. Her affected seriousness about buying was only to ensure that she wouldn’t be patronised.

  But . . . a run-down farmhouse in Provence, she mused, as the door was unlocked with a large iron key. Think what I could do with it!

  The dark hall smelled musty and mousy. Penelope caught her breath. Mme Valencourt skittered ahead on her high clacky sandals. Half walking, half feeling her way forward, Penelope followed. In a room that was revealed as a kitchen, the estate agent unlatched the window and pushed open the shutters with a painful creak. Light flooded in, illuminated the dust that dredged every surface.

  The house had clearly not been lived in for some time. Penelope tried the light switch, but nothing happened.

  Mme Valencourt opened the back door. Penelope caught her breath for a second time. The rear of the house looked out high over the Luberon Valley, which opened in a wide panorama before her. Close by was Saignon, like an enchanted fortress on a cliff. In the valley stood the town of Apt. Farther off, the large red monolith of Roussillon, and beyond it the famously beautiful village of Gordes standing proud on its rocky outcrop. On one side the mountains of the Petit Luberon range stretched away to the Rhône, and on the other, just visible over the hills, stood the bare peak of Mont Ventoux, with its seemingly snow-covered limestone summit.

  “See, madame, you are lucky! This is not on the market yet. You are the first to see it.”

  “It’s lovely.” Penelope could hardly breathe now. The setting was incredible.

  “There are some problems, of course.” Mme Valencourt shrugged, as if to imply that it wouldn’t be an authentic Provençal house without authentic Provençal problems. “But those can be overcome. Of course, you can buy a perfect new house, but it will not have the atmosphere, the old stones, the views. Those, you cannot fix if they do not exist.”

  “No. Quite.”

  “Look around. Take as long as you like.”

  “Thank you.”

  The traditional Provençal beams and tiled floors were intact. The bedrooms upstairs—three of them—were all a good size, with high ceilings. The bathroom was a disgrace, but the panorama over the valley from above the stained basin more than made up for that. Penelope wondered whether it would be too decadent to install a wet room so she could enjoy the view while she showered, then slapped herself down. She was only here out of curiosity.

  Outside, the grass was green and springy. Plum trees were coming into blossom. What looked like a quince held puffs of delicate rose-pink flowers.

  They walked towards a lower terrace where a couple of olive trees offered the silver undersides of their leaves to a pleasant breeze. Mme Valencourt led the way to an ivy-covered wall and what appeared to have once been a door. After some effort, the estate agent pushed open the door against the resistance of a pile of decaying leaves. Penelope peeked inside, and stifled a cry of delight.

  A substantial if dilapidated rectangular swimming pool lay inside a walled garden. Roman steps led down to the bottom of the pool, though this was difficult to make out through the murky leaf-infested water. Cypress trees that must once have been elegant stood brown and lifeless at the four corners of the pool. In the corner was a ramshackle pump house with half a door hanging open on what remained of its hinges. Tall arches in the far end of this enchanting walled space revealed the valley beyond.

  It was perfect.

  Penelope was so lost in thought on the way back to Ménerbes that she scarcely flinched when Mme Valencourt pulled out to overtake on a blind bend and avoided a mobile pizza van so narrowly that they could have reached out for a slice of margherita.

  “What did you think?” asked the agent as they drew up outside her office with a squeal of brakes.

  “That I can’t possibly buy the first house I’ve seen,” said Penelope. “That would be silly.”

  Over the next few days, Mme Valencourt managed to combine striding about ancient farmhouses with dress and coiffure so immaculate that Penelope could only gaze in silent envy as she, red-faced and sweating profusely after another death-defying drive, staggered through the old oak door of yet another property perched above the Luberon Valley.

  None of them was as lovely as the first.

  At last, after another morning of fruitless endeavour, the Frenchwoman turned to her in the white sitting room of a house that had been renovated to suit a die-hard minimalist—the bathroom was a white cube, the walk-in wardrobe held only white clothes, and there was no sign of anything as vulgar as a cooker in the sparkling white kitchen—and declared flatly, “This is not for you.”

  “No, I agree.”

  “It is too clean, too chic. Le Chant d’Eau at St Merlot—that’s the one for you.”

  Bit rude. Or was she simply being truthful? Penelope drew herself up, well aware that her Marks & Spencer wrap dress did not cut the mustard. No doubt Mme Valencourt had evaluated its forgiving elastane content with a laser-eyed glance, along with the shortcomings of the comfortable—and very reasonably priced—suedette boots she was wearing.

  Penelope had her pride. “I don’t know about that.”

  “It’s old and in need of attention.”

  Now she was definitely being rude. Penelope made an effort to pull in her stomach.

  “But it could be brought back to life,” went on Mme Valencourt airily.

  “That’s good to know.”

  “It has been neglected for many years. The owners lived in Lyon and hardly ever came here after the first few years.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “They were old and now they are both dead, and their children are selling it. I will take you to see it again.”

  * * *

  BY THE time Penelope returned to England, she congratulated herself on having spent an interesting two weeks in the Luberon. She had seen a bit more of local life than just wandering from her rented gîte in Ménerbes to the restaurant to drink rosé. There had been some interesting trips and—now that she had survived to tell the tale—a thrilling amount of danger provided by Mme Valencourt’s reckless disregard of other road users.

  She had a lot of fun talking up the house hunt, the loveliness of the valley, and her adventures. And it did the family no end of good to think that she just might move abroad and leave them to it. Since she’d taken early retirement, they had taken her too much for granted as an on-call unpaid babysitter, errand runner, chauffeur, and cook.

  She did it all willingly and for love—but they might have been a bit more appreciative.

  “Typical,” said Justin, “always thinking of yourself.”

  At twenty-nine, he had grown disconcertingly like his father. He was certainly as self-centred, with the same willingness to blame her for everything. No wonder his girlfriend Hannah looked increasingly sour. And their two-year-old son Rory was a holy terror.

  “If I were only thinking of myself, I would not be looking after Rory this weekend while you and Hannah go away for a break,” Penelope reminded him. “Or collecting him from playgroup on Thursdays and giving him his tea while Hannah goes to Pilates.”

  “I thought grandmothers wanted to be involved. We’re doing you a favour.”

  “Thank you for that.”

  “We could easily pay someone to do it, no problem.”

  He had his father’s arrogance about money, too, now he looked to be making a success of his job at an investment bank in the City.

  His elder sibling Lena was less rude, mainly because she was pregnant again and was counting on Penelope’s support. Lena’s husband James was trying to get his own adventure holiday business off the ground, and seemed to be away more than he was home, spending large sums in the proces
s. Penelope was often called in to help with Zack and Xerxes, mini dictators of four and three respectively. Xerxes! What would they call the next one, for heaven’s sake—Genghis?

  “What am I going to do without you? You can’t go!” wailed Lena. “Is this about all the plates the boys smashed because you wouldn’t let them play football in your kitchen?”

  The rows went on, with a few satisfying results. Lena promised to start disciplining her boys. Justin apologised and assured her that Hannah hadn’t meant to be rude when she was overheard calling Penelope “an uptight, mean Home Counties throwback who has no idea about the modern world.” That had hurt, at the time. Especially when Penelope thought of all the years of her relative youth she had devoted to being a good mother after she married David, a charming widower with a sad, baffled smile and two small children. On the plus side, it prompted her to book an appointment at an expensive hair salon in London for an overhaul.

  She emerged with a choppy bob that showed off the thickness of her natural red-gold hair. Despite the inevitable signs of age in her body since she turned fifty the previous year, Penelope was proud that she had not yet found a strand of grey. Not that any of her friends believed her, but it was true. After that, she embarked on a mission to shop.

  This was a rare event these days. Clothes shopping could be so traumatic, what with middle-aged spread and the shock of the initial glimpse in the changing-room mirror. But this time Penelope found it quite empowering. Despite appearances, she felt younger in heart than she had for a long time. After twenty-odd years of trying to be a good wife as well as a good mother despite feeling quite unhappy quite a lot of the time, she had left David five years previously after one affair too many. His affairs, not hers. Until the separation, Penelope had remained utterly faithful.

  * * *

  PENELOPE MET friends for lunch at Café Rouge, tried to get interested in playing bridge, continued to do her bit for Lena and Justin and their families, and experienced all the usual irritations of living in the South of England: the sense that living close to London brought as many disadvantages as advantages; the endless traffic hold-ups and roadworks; the rudeness of young assistants in shops; the grumbling of people who then said, “Mustn’t grumble”; the rain and the chill of depressing grey days; the television programmes featuring desperate searches for the few bargain antiques that hadn’t yet had their day on-screen.