Death in Provence

by Serena Kent

  “Something strange is going on,” said Frankie, lighting an oil lamp that Penelope had found in the cellar. “First they were sure it was an accident, and now it’s definitely murder. Mr. Gorgeous up at the mairie wants to lock everything down so that no one in the village comes under suspicion. He doesn’t get on with the chief of police, he sends his mistress packing just when she was hoping for a bit of afternoon delight and zooms off to ‘see the priest.’ See the priest, my arse. ’Scuse my French.”

  “It’s all conjecture, though, isn’t it?” said Penelope. “We’re on the outside looking in. There’s always the possibility that we’re judging from our culture, not theirs. We think the French are just like us because we travel back and forth so easily these days, but actually they’re as foreign as they ever were. In a good way, of course. Vive la différence, and all that. Talking of which, my English constitution can’t take all this wine on an empty stomach . . .”

  She went inside to fetch the remains of their lunchtime picnic.

  “So let’s think through what little we found out this afternoon that we didn’t already know,” said Penelope as she put the baguette, cheese, olives, and fruit on the table. There was still enough to feed an army, and they grazed on it happily. She popped a slice of Camembert into her mouth. “Nicole at the post office confirmed that Avore’s wife wasn’t exactly thrilled to have him back.”

  “How long was he in prison for?” asked Frankie.

  “Didier Picaud said it was three years. And he was released early.”

  “Didn’t she mention your gardener chap, M. Charpet? Avore used to help himself to his tools and garden equipment, and she said he thought Avore was trouble. And M. Louchard, who we met this morning, he also had the Avore treatment. Hang on, let me just focus . . .”

  They both took a deep gulp of wine to help the process. The rosé from Roussillon really was very light and delicious.

  “Going down a treat,” said Frankie. “Just as well we bought a few of these. All right, what do we know about Charpet and Louchard? They had to deal with Avore being a thief as well as a bad neighbour. Are those strong enough motives to kill him?”

  “I would definitely put Louchard in as a suspect. Angers easily, has an army background, and can’t stand Avore. But the mayor was fairly indignant that anyone would even put M. Charpet in the frame, what with his past as a boy member of the Resistance. He must be older than he looks, mustn’t he?”

  “It’s the sun and the fantastic food here. Hard physical outdoor work, too—that makes them all live so long and healthily.”

  “Most of them.” Penelope raised an eyebrow.

  “Look, I agree, it seems unlikely that Charpet could be responsible, but you never know,” said Frankie. “What about the wife?”

  “Well, she probably had the strongest motive of all. But if she did do him in, unless she’s a giantess, she would have needed help to get the body down the lane and into the pool,” Penelope pointed out. “So who could have helped her?”

  “Open another bottle, Pen, and we’ll have a think.”

  After another glass, Penelope said: “Who is Jacques?”

  “Eh?”

  “When we went to the mairie, one of the women said straightaway, ‘And there’s Jacques’—who presumably had some beef with Avore. Don’t you remember?”

  “Vaguely . . .”

  “The mayor interrupted. So we need to keep an eye out for Jacques. Whoever he is.”

  13

  PENELOPE FELT CONSIDERABLY LESS GUNG ho in the morning. A knock on the door announced a steaming cup of tea and Frankie, dressed for action in khaki silk combat pants and a rather frightening leopard’s face peering from her top. The big cat’s eyes glittered as the morning light glanced off green and gold sequins.

  “Wakey, wakey!”

  Penelope groaned and turned over, cursing both her hangover and her friend’s resistance to wine-induced headaches. Was that down to the HRT too? The mug of tea was placed, rather too noisily for her liking, on the stone floor.

  “See you in half an hour, Pen.”

  The door closed.

  Penelope fumbled for the packet of Anadin Extra and popped two, wondering whether all the drinking in France was going to make her a painkiller addict. Her heart sank. Something else to worry about.

  Luckily she felt better fairly quickly after closing her eyes for twenty minutes, drinking the tea, and perking herself up under a cold shower. When she went downstairs, she found a jug of coffee and a pile of warm, buttery pains au chocolat and almond croissants waiting for her on the table outside.

  “How lovely! Thanks, Frankie.”

  “No worries. I was up with the lark, so I walked into the village. That boulangerie is phenomenal, isn’t it?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. I’ve only let myself go there once. It could be my undoing.”

  “Nice chap, the baker, too. He’s expecting you.”

  “Eh?”

  “We started talking, and I told him it wouldn’t be long before you were a regular customer. He asked me if you were the English lady who’s had the Regrettable Incident at her pool.”

  Penelope’s spirits soon soared. Surely there was nothing nicer than a summer breakfast outside. The promise of a day exploring the valley showing Frankie some of the stunning hilltop villages energised her. “Perhaps we can do some clothes shopping or visit an art gallery. It’ll make a change from dealing with all the things I need to do here.”

  She sat back in her seat. The latest croissant seemed to have made it under the waistband of her trousers already.

  Frankie shrugged and bit into a second pain au chocolat.

  “Surely you want to go shopping, or walk through a lavender field or see some of the sights?” Penelope persisted. “Shouldn’t we go out, do what people normally do on a little holiday in Provence?”

  “I’m not here under normal circumstances,” Frankie reminded her. “And anyway, we can’t stop now.”

  Penelope sighed. “I’m not saying we’re stopping, just that we need a change of scene. Some perspective, maybe.”

  * * *

  IT WAS another cloudless day, and the blue sky seemed to extend to infinity. “This is the Provence I want to show you,” said Penelope, feeling happier.

  They slowed down as they passed the Avore house. It mouldered mournfully, tightly shuttered, with no sign of the elusive merry widow.

  At Bonnieux, Penelope parked the Range Rover close to an impressive church on the lower slopes of the village, and they walked up narrow cobbled streets to a vantage point at the summit. Behind them, another church spire reached into the heavens. The Luberon Valley lay before them from a completely different perspective.

  “See over there, the ruined castle?” Penelope pointed towards a neighbouring hilltop village. “That’s Lacoste. The castle was once the home of the infamous Marquis de Sade.”

  “The whips, the whips!”

  “That’s the one. Back in the day, the two villages were always feuding. Sacred and profane. Church versus obscenity.”

  “And plenty of hypocrites dashing along the road to Lacoste, no doubt.”

  Penelope laughed. “The castle, or what’s left of it, is now owned by the fashion designer Pierre Cardin. He stages an opera festival there every summer, very lavishly.”

  They wandered down towards the middle of the village, past the open doors of shops that smelt as good as they looked. Every display offered vibrant colour. The shiny black-purple of a pile of ripe aubergines vied with a hundred shades of green and pink and orange and red at the grocery. Bars of perfumed soap: lavender and fig and patchouli and vanilla. Another shop sold patterned Provençal fabrics in yellow and red, and yellow and purple, all contrasting beautifully with the building’s faded silver-green shutters.

  They lingered outside a chocolate shop, taking in the mouthwatering display of pralines and ganaches and other enticing bonbons. After a few minutes, the cocoa scent overcame their willpower and they went i
nside to make some carefully considered, though still substantial, purchases.

  Frankie then decided she ought to buy some mementos of Provence to take home, including a dog toy containing lavender that was supposed to calm overexcitable pets. “He’ll love it,” she trilled. Like so many dog owners, she became ridiculously soppy and detached from reality when she talked about the animal she loved.

  Penelope privately reckoned the toy would be reduced to its elemental constituents within about a minute by Frankie’s hound from hell.

  The streets were getting more crowded. Tables outside the restaurants were starting to fill up.

  “Fancy a quick drink?” asked Frankie, hopefully.

  “Just a quick one, then.”

  They installed themselves at a table for two at a ravishingly pretty restaurant by a stone fountain in the shade of several plane trees. Crowds strolled by and bottlenecks formed as groups of people were attracted to the large, vibrant paintings on display at an artist’s atelier opposite. A carafe of rosé was ordered, and by the time the waiter brought them the lunch menus, there was no going back.

  “Rude not to,” said Frankie.

  And indeed it would have been. Dainty dishes of local vegetables and langoustines and black olive tapenade with croutons were being ferried to other tables. Penelope’s stomach gave a rumble.

  They were halfway through their exquisite galette de légumes provençaux avec mozzarella et tapenade when Frankie put her fork down and nodded towards the crowds wandering past. “Psst!” she hissed.

  “What, already? I can’t believe that, Frankie. We’ve only just started the second carafe, even if you are having more than I am because I’m driving.”

  “No. ‘Psst’ meaning look over there and don’t draw attention to yourself.”

  Penelope raised her eyes from her plate and looked in the direction Frankie had nodded. She couldn’t see anything untoward. “What am I looking for? A person?”

  “Yep.”

  “Someone we know well?”

  “Nope.”

  Penelope shifted her gaze to the street. She was just about to tell Frankie to stop playing silly games and just say it when she saw what her friend had spotted.

  Clémence Valencourt was going into another restaurant and being shown to a table. Waiting for her to be seated was Penelope’s farmer neighbour M. Louchard, suited and booted for a special occasion.

  “Interesting,” said Frankie.

  “Very.”

  They both popped their sunglasses back on and took a long look while pretending they were focusing elsewhere. Two glasses of champagne were brought to the table, and Mme Valencourt raised hers in a toast that M. Louchard matched.

  “A celebration?” wondered Penelope.

  “More like a job well done. Or a business deal.”

  “Something to do with the hold she seemed to have over him yesterday when we went to drink his plum brandy?”

  Try as they might, they couldn’t work out whether it was significant, or just one of those coincidences that seems more important than it is.

  Penelope giggled. “Perhaps Clémence is hiring him to note down the mayor’s movements in and out of the village. She’s going to pay M. Louchard to tail him in one of those cars that looks like it’s made from corrugated iron.”

  “Or pull out in his tractor when the mayor tries to zoom off in his open-top Mercedes to meet another woman!”

  They both snorted with mirth.

  Then Frankie stopped laughing. She grabbed Penelope’s arm. “Aye aye . . . maybe not. Guess who has just entered stage left?”

  Penelope pretended to look in another direction and swivelled her eyes behind her dark glasses. It was the mayor himself, exuding laid-back charisma. “This is all very cosy,” she said. “Wonder what’s going on here.”

  “Perhaps we should go over and say hello.”

  “And perhaps we shouldn’t.”

  “They might see us anyway,” said Frankie. “Does it matter if they do?”

  “I’m being paranoid, aren’t I?” Penelope shook her head, then fanned herself with her napkin.

  “Oh, here we go. That’ll be the Mayor Effect,” whispered Frankie.

  “It most certainly is not,” said Penelope.

  Frankie wiped her brow with her own napkin as Laurent Millais went over to the table occupied by Mme Valencourt and M. Louchard. “It’s either very hot today, or he’s having much the same effect on me—and I am not only happily married but subject to the finest hormone replacement therapy money can buy.”

  “But he’s not sitting down with them,” said Penelope. “He’s pointing down the street and looking at his watch.” They watched as nods were exchanged and the mayor wandered off in the direction he had indicated.

  They debated what this might mean as they ordered desserts. They were going to have to spin out their meal in order to see what happened next. The white chocolate mousse with black cherry compote was heavenly.

  Frankie insisted on paying the bill before they had finished their espressos, and they lingered at the table surrounded by the aroma of strong, rich coffee. When the estate agent and M. Louchard got up and shook hands, the two friends were ready to go.

  “You follow Louchard, and I’ll take Valencourt,” said Frankie. “See you back at the car.”

  They waited until their quarry moved off, then slipped into the stream of tourists behind them. M. Louchard took the direction the mayor had indicated. Penelope kept him in her sights as he loped down the descending narrow street. He did not stop to look in any of the shops or bars until he came to a café at the very end of the road.

  The café was set on the junction opposite the grand church, close to the car park where Penelope had left the Range Rover. The few tables and chairs outside the café were not occupied. As M. Louchard went inside, Penelope ducked into a doorway, wondering what to do next.

  She did not have long to wait. Louchard emerged a couple of minutes later with the mayor and another man she recognised. He was sixty, maybe, but well preserved, with silver curls and a beard. He was wearing a beautifully cut charcoal linen suit and pointed Italian shoes. There was a film star quality about him that ran the mayor quite close.

  The three of them walked briskly over to the parking spaces beneath the trees in front of the church. They stopped by a car that Penelope also recognised with a shiver of unease.

  14

  “QUICK!” SQUEAKED PENELOPE. “IT’S THAT red Ferrari again!”

  She started the Range Rover as Frankie opened the door. They were off with a scrunch of gravel before she had closed it.

  “Clémence has gone, by the way,” said Frankie, pulling on her seat belt. “Her Mini was obstructing the pavement just round the corner from the restaurant. She went off like a bat out of hell, with some bloke in a delivery van shaking his fist at her.”

  Penelope peered round as they reached the spot where the Ferrari had been parked. “Damn it! They were still chatting when I went past on the other side of the road.”

  “They can’t have gone far,” said Frankie.

  “No, they can’t. The parking space is still free. Any space on the road fills up immediately in summer.” Penelope accelerated.

  They reached the edge of the village and made the first bend in the road leading down into the valley. There was a clear view of the countryside below.

  “There they are!” Frankie pointed.

  A low red car was speeding away in the direction of the main road to Avignon.

  Penelope shot the Range Rover forward like a heat-seeking missile.

  “Whoa! Hang on, Pen, what are we doing?”

  “Following them, of course!”

  “But why?”

  It was a good question. “Call it woman’s instinct,” said Penelope grimly.

  “Because you’ve seen this car a few times? You’re not stalking some rich potential husband, are you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  They lurched ro
und another bend.

  “I just want to know what these people are up to,” said Penelope. “Call me suspicious, but I don’t like the smell of this. I feel as if I’m being set up somehow, and I don’t like it. Doesn’t it seem like a big coincidence that Mme Valencourt and the mayor, and now my neighbour M. Louchard, all seem to know the silver fox in the red Ferrari that keeps appearing everywhere?”

  “Silver fox?”

  “The guy who came out of the café with Louchard and the mayor. It’s his car. I recognised him from the time he stopped just by the entrance to the track.”

  “Is tailing him a good idea?”

  “Probably not. But I’m doing it anyway.”

  “Your call. You look at the road, I’ll keep them in view.”

  Penelope gunned the engine and swerved to overtake.

  “I don’t remember you having this turn of speed behind the wheel, Pen.”

  “All those years on the school run. You learn base cunning and ruthlessness. I still got it when I need it.”

  They made up some ground on the Ferrari as it was held up before joining the main road. It turned towards Avignon, and Penelope concentrated on keeping it in sight while not getting too close. Before long, it swooped off, taking the turning to Gordes on the opposite side of the valley.

  “Right . . . concentrate, Frankie. We don’t want to lose them here.”

  “You’ll need to get a bit closer, then. And get round this Dutch caravan. Now . . . go!”

  Penelope pulled out with blind faith, making it back to the right side of the road just before a BMW travelling in the other direction flashed past them.

  “That was close,” she said.

  “Do you want to do this, or not?”

  Penelope gripped the wheel tighter.

  The village of Gordes was a beauty, no doubt about it. It rose on a rocky hilltop like a highly decorated wedding cake, each layer holding charming stone houses and gardens full of regimented cypress trees, oleander, and geraniums. The castle at the summit was white against the deep blue of the sky.

  “I hope we don’t lose them here, it’s packed with tourists at this time of year,” said Penelope.