Death in Provence

by Serena Kent

  “Can I get you anything else—another coffee?”

  Penelope was already buzzing, but it seemed her best chance for a chat. “Yes, please. But with lots of milk, a grand crème.”

  “I’ll bring it to you outside.”

  “I can wait. I want another look at your wonderful pâtisserie. Is it all made here?”

  “Everything. My husband gets up every morning at four to start baking. I make everything ready for him at midnight before I sleep. And I make the macarons and the petits gâteaux génoises, the mousse cakes. My specialities. The trick is in the precise consistency of the egg whites and sugar, and the very best chocolate. We met at bakery school, you know.”

  “Quite a partnership,” said Penelope. She was just digging in before steering the conversation to less mouthwatering and more useful territory when Jacques Correa emerged from a fringed partition behind the counter. He had obviously started another batch of baking. Sweat trickled from his hairline, leaving rivulets in the flour dust on his temples.

  “Second visit of the day—you are French already, madame!”

  “Oh? Does everyone come here twice a day?”

  “The French are very demanding. The bread must be absolutely fresh. The precise texture of crispness in the crust. The centre must be soft but still chewy. But the bread lives and changes. What is perfect at lunchtime will be no good at dinner.” His dark eyes were intense as he spoke about his craft.

  Then he changed the subject abruptly. “I am sorry to hear of your break-in, madame.”

  How on earth did he know about that? Penelope supposed it was the efficiency of the rumour mill in small French villages.

  “It’s not so bad, thank you. They didn’t take anything,” she said. Then almost to herself, “And I suppose it is one village crime that can’t be blamed on Manuel Avore.”

  She didn’t need to reply as he launched into a torrent of words, the name Manuel Avore prominent among them. How was she bearing up? What a terrible thing to happen on the first day in her new house. Oh, they all knew all about it all right. Of course they did. How could you keep a secret in a village like St Merlot?

  “Did you dislike M. Avore too?” asked Penelope.

  The baker pulled down the corners of his generously expressive mouth. “Me? No. With me, he was OK. I felt sorry for him. I would give him the stale bread for nothing. Huh, not really stale, just not up to the perfection that everyone else expects. Maybe some pâtisserie that was past its best.”

  “You’re the first person I’ve met who has a good word to say about him.” He was not the Jacques who wished Avore gone, she thought. That must be someone else.

  “Bread is life. It has to be made and given with a good heart.”

  His wife nodded sagely. “How are you getting on with your surviving neighbour—Pierre Louchard?”

  “Well . . . OK, I think.”

  “He has been polite, he hasn’t tried to—Ah, Jean-Luc!”

  Penelope turned round. A man stepped forward, and he and the baker clapped each other on the back. He nodded politely at her. She hoped he hadn’t overheard too much of their chitchat.

  “Welcome to St Merlot, madame,” said Jean-Luc, affably enough. He was another good-looking man in his forties, not overly tall but with olive skin and lustrous dark hair. His jeans were patched with dust, but he was casually stylish. He too seemed to know without being told who she was.

  “Thank you.”

  “How are you getting on? It was not good, what happened. We were all horrified.”

  “I’m doing well, in the circumstances.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He extended his hand. “Jean-Luc. I own the garage over there, among other interests.” He nodded in the direction of the picturesque little service station.

  She shook it. “Penelope Kite.”

  “You’ve come for the peach and pistachio gâteau, I take it?” Correa addressed him. “Would you mind, Sylvie?”

  “Ooh.” Penelope gave an involuntary sigh. “That sounds lovely.”

  His wife fetched a large white box from the back. “Keep it in the fridge until six o’clock, then somewhere shady until around nine. You won’t be eating it until nine, surely?”

  “Perfect,” said Jean-Luc. “By the way, did you hear about what’s going on with the priest and his old friend?”

  They were practised gossips. Penelope’s ears were waggling, but they spoke so fast it was hard to understand, and they were careful not to drop too many actual names. She was longing to get on to the subject of the mayor, but then thought better of it. Whatever she said was bound to get back. She was going to have to play a long game here. Very possibly involving unwise quantities of pâtisserie.

  * * *

  AN INTERESTING morning, thought Penelope as she bit into the puits d’amour. The caramel on top cracked divinely on the tongue, rich with a hint of salt, while the redcurrant jelly filling was sharp against the sweetness of the spongy exterior. Jacques Correa was a baking genius.

  He also heard and saw everything that went on in St Merlot, which could be very helpful. Had he been about to say something about Pierre Louchard when Jean-Luc came in? How had he found out about the break-in so quickly?

  She entered the drive to find M. Charpet inspecting the repair of her front door. He smiled as she walked up.

  “Madame, tout est bien!”

  Penelope came close to shedding a little tear at the man’s kindness.

  “Ne t’inquiète pas. Don’t worry. It will have been a few young idiots, nothing serious.”

  Penelope carried on smiling, and pumped his hand enthusiastically as he made ready to leave. But she did not share his optimism.

  23

  DIDIER THE ELECTRICIAN ROLLED UP with M at nine o’clock the next morning. Like the sun coming out from behind a dark cloud, he peeped round the back door, then held out a box of six speckled brown eggs. “Fresh from my hens. I heard about the break-in. I hope everything is all right. These are to cheer you up.”

  Before starting the rewiring of the ground floor, he had a look at a leaky pipe under the sink, fixing it with a monkey wrench, and recommended a bathroom supplier to ask for a quote. Then he set to work, whistling in tuneful bursts, while Penelope scraped Polyfilla into the cracks in the hall.

  At eleven they had a tea break, with a bowl of water for M. She nuzzled Didier’s hand, tail wagging joyously, as he produced some bone-shaped biscuits from his pocket. The dog had been so well behaved, you wouldn’t have known she was there. Her black silky coat gleamed. She was obviously very content and well cared for.

  They settled down for a spot of English conversation. It was a win-win situation. While they were speaking English, he told her what she wanted to know about St Merlot, like the weekend opening times at the shops and which bank in Apt had the most pleasant and helpful staff, and asked her all about herself and her life in England. None of it felt forced, despite his occasional awkwardness.

  “Are you married, Didier?” She hadn’t noticed a girl watching him play pétanque.

  “Me? No.”

  “A girlfriend, partner?”

  “No. I am not lucky yet.”

  He seemed quite happy about it. Penelope could imagine that he enjoyed being left alone to follow his own slightly nerdy interests, watching his Bond films and playing British music very loudly. He reminded her a bit of one of Justin’s friends who worked in IT.

  She was tempted to mention the bones in the chapel to find out whether there was any gossip in the village, and only just stopped herself in time. Instead she asked about Mme Avore. “Is she still living at the house at the end of the track here?”

  “I haven’t heard otherwise. Though she is often out all day. She drives a mobile library round the villages of the Luberon.”

  “Oh!” A memory from the day she arrived at St Merlot popped up in Penelope’s mind, in full Technicolor. “Not the lavender-mauve Bibliobus? I think I saw it, my first day here, up at the square.”

&
nbsp; “Which day would that have been?”

  “Let me think, it must have been . . . a Wednesday.”

  “Voilà! That is the day the Bibliobus stops in St Merlot for two hours before lunch.”

  “She sounds a very different character from her husband. It’s hardly credible that they could be together,” mused Penelope. “Why did she marry him in the first place?” She knew the answer, but didn’t want to seem too well-informed.

  “She was some kind of cousin. The family arranged it.”

  “That’s grim,” said Penelope. “And hard to get out of.”

  “Almost impossible,” concurred the young electrician. “Families are very close around here.”

  They chatted a bit more about the village and its businesses. He agreed that Jacques Correa was a very fine baker, though he thought the épicerie-fruiterie could be more adventurous in its stock. Penelope learned nothing new.

  He left for lunch at twelve on the dot, calling for M, and said he would be back soon to tackle the rest of the replacement wiring.

  * * *

  THE DOOR to the little stone barn that Penelope hoped one day to make into her music studio was warped. Its lavender paint was peeling off, and the latch was hard to shift. She had to wrestle with it before it gave way.

  It creaked open to reveal a musty, dusty space. Cobwebs hung like fishing nets from the rafters. She stepped inside and picked her way across rusting farm implements, buckets, animal troughs, and other castoffs. More rickety kitchen chairs were pushed against the wall. She picked up a colander and a broken fly swat. If she was ever going to make it into a light, airy space, she would need to get a dumpster in to clear it.

  As she made her way farther in, though, she noticed an old table in the corner. It had clearly seen better days, but a table could always be upcycled, if only for the garden. She went over and dragged it out. Not bad. It was old, but more of an antique than first impressions had suggested. In fact, she thought, cleaned up and polished, it might make a very nice piece for a music studio—or even the sitting room. It had drawers that would provide good storage space for her sheet music: Fauré’s Pavane, the Rachmaninov sonata that she had daydreams about practising to perfection—or as close as she could get.

  She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped it across the top. Was it made of rosewood, or walnut, perhaps? A chessboard revealed itself. This was clearly some sort of games table. She studied it, and opened one flap, then another. The top transformed into a green baize card table.

  There were two drawers, tricky to open, as if damp had swollen the wood, but she was rewarded by finding a jumble of chessmen in one, and a cribbage scorer. The other was particularly stiff. Penelope returned with a screwdriver to try to prise it open. After several heated tries, she was able to rock it free.

  This drawer contained two objects—a set of playing cards and, lying underneath it, a piece of creased paper.

  She drew it out carefully. It was a newspaper cutting, slightly crumpled. Intrigued, she took it outside to examine in the light.

  A photograph showed a group of men at a gaming table in a casino—“Le Casino de Salon-de-Provence.” The name of the establishment was clearly visible, as if the photographer had set up the shot to include it for promotional reasons.

  She looked more closely at the faces. The man at the centre of the photo looked glum, while those around him were celebratory, in a formal kind of way. Infuriatingly, the caption had been snipped away, but there was a date at the top of the page: Monday, April 12, 2010.

  It was clearly a gambling scene. Penelope was stumped. Was one of these men Manuel Avore? Did he still own the house in 2010? Why didn’t he take this nice piece of furniture with him when he left?

  She picked up the pack of cards.

  The pattern on the back was of leaves and tendrils. Just like the one that she had found with the skeleton in the ruined chapel. She would check it against the photo she took, but she was pretty certain they were a match.

  Heart pounding, she ran inside. She put on her rubber washing-up gloves and began to deal the cards at the kitchen table. Sure enough, as she finished and looked down at the piles of the four suits, arranged from two upwards, there was only one card missing—the ace of spades.

  * * *

  PENELOPE TRIED to call Clémence, but she was not in the office, and her mobile went straight to voice mail. She wondered whether she might try the mayor, then decided against it. She still didn’t know what his game was. Besides, it was nearly lunchtime on a Wednesday, when the mairie closed for a half day.

  “Lunchtime on Wednesday!” she said out loud.

  She hurled herself into the hall, grabbed her car keys, and was driving up the hill into the village before she had time to think of a strategy. All she knew was that she couldn’t miss her chance to meet Mariette Avore.

  The lavender-mauve Bibliobus was parked at the edge of the square, exactly where it had been the first time Penelope had seen it. The old man was sitting on his usual bench, half asleep over La Provence. A couple of elderly folk were chatting nearby, books in hand. The door to the mobile library was in the middle of the bus, and it was still open.

  Penelope parked the Range Rover and walked over. She looked up at the driver’s seat, but it was empty, so she climbed the steps into the bus. The interior was cramped but welcoming. Shelves of books lined each side from floor to roof. Reference tomes took up stately position close to the back, and well-thumbed novels were within easy reach of the entrance. A purple and green carpet added a jaunty note.

  Standing near the front, pushing books back into place, was a pretty woman in her mid-forties, humming to herself. A few strands of silver gleamed in her long dark hair, which was scrunched into a bun and held in place with a plastic grip jaw. She wore a linen tunic, of a design found in every market in Provence, over cropped trousers and sensible sandals, sturdy enough to wear to drive a bus. A pair of glasses hung on a chain necklace.

  “Excusez-moi—Mme Avore?” ventured Penelope.

  Mme Avore’s dark eyes were tired, but the smile lit her face. Her teeth were very white. “Oui, madame.”

  “Bonjour! I am the new owner of Le Chant d’Eau. My name is Penelope Kite.”

  “Ah, l’anglaise! English!”

  “Yes.”

  They looked, a fraction nervously, at each other. Perhaps they were both wondering whether to mention Penelope’s swimming pool and its unfortunate significance. Neither found it necessary to do so.

  “I am very sorry for your loss,” said Penelope.

  Mariette Avore accepted her condolences with a simple nod.

  “Do you have a book about St Merlot?” asked Penelope, in accordance with the scratch plan she had formulated as she hurtled up the hill. A nice anodyne request to start the conversation rolling.

  Mariette gave a wide smile. She certainly seemed happy in her bereavement. “Ah, yes, I have many. I love books about the old days in the Luberon. So much history. There is a whole row just behind you.”

  “May I borrow one, or do I need a library card?” The spectre of French bureaucracy was never far from Penelope’s consciousness.

  “Pfff! I know where you live. I think I will be able to make you return it.”

  It sounded like a joke, but was delivered without a smile. Mariette Avore was a serious woman, thought Penelope.

  She got back on track. “Do you know a lot about the history of this village?”

  “Plenty.”

  “And my house?”

  Mariette inclined her head.

  “I don’t suppose there are any books that mention Le Chant d’Eau?”

  “You want to find out about your house? That is normal. But I cannot think of any book here that will tell you much. Sorry.”

  “It doesn’t really matter. I just thought I’d ask.”

  They exchanged another appraising look. Mariette was still an attractive woman. Was it the romance with Pierre Louchard that was responsible for the spar
kle in the eyes? Or was it, as Penelope recognised all too well, the cautious optimism of a woman emerging from her old life into a new and potentially better future?

  “You have lived here for a long time?” asked Penelope.

  “A very long time.”

  Penelope hesitated. She recalled all the conversations with people who had confirmed that this was a good woman, kind and worthy of respect. Maybe this was the moment to take a gamble of her own.

  She pulled the newspaper clipping out of her pocket and held it out. “I found this in my house. Do you recognise any of these men?”

  Mariette took the piece of paper and solemnly reached for the reading glasses dangling from her neck. She studied the photo without comment.

  The silence was eventually broken by the bleep of an alarm from the direction of the driver’s seat.

  “It is time for me to move on to Castellet,” said the librarian, without raising her eyes from the clipping.

  Penelope waited silently.

  “I’m not sure. There is something . . . but I can’t be certain. It’s been a long time since I saw him.”

  “Which man?”

  Mariette pointed at the glum-looking man.

  “Who is he?”

  “I can’t be sure. I only saw him once.”

  “When did you see him—I mean, in what circumstances?”

  “He came to the house to see my . . . late husband. Manuel told me to stay upstairs.”

  “Why?”

  “It did not seem like a friendly visit.”

  “When was this?”

  “Years ago. Around the time we moved into the house where I live now—so it must have been in 2010.”

  A pause. Penelope waited, hoping she would elaborate.

  “Was it to do with gambling?” asked Penelope, pointing at the casino sign in the photo and hoping that Mariette wouldn’t conclude that she had been gossiping about Manuel’s difficulties.

  “It could have been.”

  “A gambling debt?”

  “Quite possibly.”

  “Did your husband frequent the Casino de Salon-de-Provence?”