by Serena Kent
“Naturally!” said Valentine.
“That is life,” said her brother.
Valentine busied herself with the many plates, and resisted forcefully all attempts by her guest to help. Soon she staggered back to the table with a blanquette de veau so delicately fragrant that it brought a tear to M. Charpet’s eye.
“La pièce de résistance!” he cried.
They drank a gloriously deep red wine from a bottle with no label. It seemed to unfurl a rich fruitiness in the mouth, but somehow did not overpower the creamy veal dish. The combination was magnificent.
Penelope put down her glass in a concerted effort to pace her drinking. “What do you think about the murder of Manuel Avore?” she asked. Oh, dear. She probably had had far too much to drink again. It was making her bold. “Could it have been connected to the feud between the Avores and the Louchards?”
“Who knows?” asked M. Charpet.
Penelope turned to Valentine. “I saw M. Louchard with Mme Avore at the fête last weekend. They looked very friendly.”
“I saw them too,” said Valentine.
“What do you think, will there be a happy ending for them?”
“Pfff!” said her brother. “Who knows?”
“There is no chance that Mme Avore could have . . . helped herself to win her freedom?” It came out awkwardly in Penelope’s French, apparently without the insinuation she had intended.
“You mean, why didn’t Mariette Avore leave Manuel long ago?” Valentine shook her head. “He would have come after her. And she did not want to leave the village. She has many friends here. A kind woman, who is much respected.”
“A bad marriage is hard to endure,” said Penelope.
“That is certainly true, madame,” M. Charpet joined in. “He was a difficult man with many enemies, but it was easy to blame Manuel Avore for any trouble in the village.”
“It does seem so.”
M. Charpet sat back in his chair and regarded her intently.
“Last Sunday I saw you buy the lanterns and the oil lamp from Jean-Luc Malpas at the vide grenier.”
Penelope nodded. “Jean-Luc is a Malpas?”
“You were so happy to find the oil lamp because you thought it made a pair with the other one you found at Le Chant d’Eau. What a piece of luck! Can I ask you, madame, when you took it home, was it an exact pair?”
“It was!”
“What did you think about that?”
“I thought . . . it was, as you say, a piece of luck. And that probably it was mass-produced in this region.”
M. Charpet shook his head sadly. “No. That oil lamp was stolen from Le Chant d’Eau. There were always two at the house, used in the garden in summer when the breeze would have puffed out the candles.”
“You think that Jean-Luc stole it?”
“The Malpas family may have been Resistants, but they were no saints. It might have been Jean-Luc.”
“Manuel Avore,” said Valentine, firmly. “I bet it was him. He was always crawling over Le Chant d’Eau, and he would take anything that wasn’t fixed in cement.”
“You see? Avore was always getting the blame!” said her brother.
“Tell, me,” said Penelope, thinking back to what Jean-Luc had said to her about the baker and his wife. “What is your opinion of Jacques Correa, the baker, and his wife?”
“He is an excellent baker.”
“He is an artist,” said Valentine.
“Oh, I know that. But apart from that . . . how does the village see them as people? Simply as a centre of information and gossip?”
“That, yes.”
“How reliable are they as purveyors of information?” Then, when she saw her hosts look blank, Penelope said, “Correa told me he had no problem with Manuel Avore, but others say differently. What was the truth, as you saw it?”
“He’s all right, Correa. He had a few problems a while ago, but all is well now. If he gets a bit creative with the chat, it’s because he wants people to like him and come to his shop. And mostly they do.”
Valentine concurred.
“What kind of problems?” asked Penelope.
“His gambling got out of hand for a while. Some violence. But all in the past now.”
So Jean-Luc’s story could be true. It was another gambling connection. Penelope could not help noting that the baker was used to hefting heavy trays of dough around in his strong arms. A nasty comparison between the dough and a lifeless body floated across her mind’s eye. His wife Sylvie was strong, too. It occurred to Penelope that they were always up early in the morning, when most other people were asleep. She was going to have to find out a bit more about the loquacious baker and his wife.
Valentine served an oakleaf lettuce salad with tangy vinaigrette. Then a cheese board. A raspberry tart and Chantilly cream followed. As they progressed in stately manner through the menu, Penelope became full to bursting point, not only with wondrous delicacies but with new information that forced her to reevaluate all her impressions of St Merlot and its inhabitants.
* * *
PENELOPE WALKED home very slowly. How long would it take to become truly part of St Merlot life? She had a wise friend in M. Charpet, and her confidence was growing as she became more determined to solve the crimes. She made her way down the path, pushing aside the gorse and bramble bushes now laden with blackberries, until the slope levelled and she found herself staring at M. Louchard’s farm.
For a minute she stood catching her breath and staring at the distant hills of the Petit Luberon, hazy and brown. She was about to start off again when a flash of reflected sunlight from behind the wall of the farm caught her eye. It startled her. In a moment of pure reflex, she jumped towards a tree trunk. It was a fortunate move, as a split second later, the now familiar crack of a rifle sounded and a bullet whistled past. She hit the ground and rolled towards the scrub at the side of the path. She stayed down for at least fifteen minutes, shaking from head to foot. There were no more shots, just the sound of running feet from the direction of the farm. All became quiet.
That can’t have been drunken hunters, she thought. It must have been deliberate. If she had drunk less wine at lunch, she might have stayed down for longer. But she wasn’t thinking straight. She eased herself out of the ditch and crawled along the path, as if she was on some military training exercise.
She arrived home dirty and tired, but still in one piece. This was distinctly unfunny. With trembling hands she stabbed out the number the chief of police had given her, but there was no reply. The same went for the mayor and Clémence. She tried repeatedly, with the same result.
29
AS DAWN TOUCHED THE TOP of the Luberon ridge, a sleep-deprived Penelope got dressed and went out on foot. She kept away from the track and took a route through the trees to Louchard’s farm, keen that no one, least of all Louchard, should know where she was headed.
Once at the scene of the shooting, Penelope surveyed the landscape, trying to reimagine her way back to the previous afternoon. She was heartened by the fact that the farmer’s car was not in the drive, and the farmhouse appeared empty. Was he already up and about—or could he have spent the night with Mme Avore at her house, maybe? She pulled out her camera, a large map, and some tape. Looking around to make sure she was not being observed, she began to take furtive photos from various angles.
Every few seconds she glanced anxiously towards the farmhouse and back down the track to check that nobody was coming. Then she stood where she had been when the shot was fired, trying to picture exactly the moment she’d seen the glint of reflected sunlight.
Carefully she pieced together the incident. The gunshot had whistled past her right ear as she was standing on the path next to the tree. She could imagine its general trajectory, which she marked on her map in pencil. Then she stumbled down into the ditch where she had lain hidden.
It was clear, even with a rough estimate, that the gunshot had come from the direction of the farmhouse. The glint
of sunlight on metal had definitely been behind the farm wall. She felt sure that she had been targeted. Tracing the path of the bullet in her memory, she marked out a small area of trees and undergrowth, then pulled out her gardening gloves and secateurs and went to work sifting through the brambles.
It was a painstaking and sometimes painful task. The wild brambles, some bedecked with blackberries, had thorns that punctured the most resistant of materials. Penelope soon found herself sweating, arms shredded by scratches. Nature was conspiring to hinder her search, but she stuck to her task.
After several hours she was rewarded with the sight of something metallic burrowed into a tree root in the cleared area. She wormed it out. It was a bullet.
Penelope stared at the shiny piece of metal. It looked new. It was horrible to think that it could so easily have hit her the previous day—killed her, even.
That was it. She was going back to the police, even if the chief did think she was a figure of ridicule. She was just imagining the scene at the police station, and what she would say, when the unmistakable sound of a tractor intruded. It was getting closer.
Penelope scarcely had time to scramble upright before M. Louchard’s prize-winning machine crested the horizon, taking up the whole width of the track. She was trapped.
The tractor rumbled towards her, then stopped abruptly. Louchard jumped down. Penelope adjusted her dress into some semblance of order and gripped the spent bullet tightly in her gloved hand. She took a deep breath as the farmer advanced on her with a questioning look.
“Bonjour, monsieur, comment allez-vous?” She tried hard to act as if nothing had happened. The shot had come from this man’s land. Maybe even from an upper window of his farmhouse. Was it possible that this was her adversary all along, even as he had pretended to befriend her?
“Très bien merci, Mme Keet, and how are you?”
He sounded amicable, but her veins ran to ice as she remembered how he had talked about hunters and their stray bullets when she was on her way down to that fateful encounter with the bones in the chapel. That was not long before the first incidence of gunfire. Almost as if he knew what she was about to encounter.
He took off his cap. “What are you doing, madame?”
“I was walking here yesterday, monsieur, and I seem to have lost an earring—I was looking for it in the undergrowth.”
“I am glad that you have found it, then.”
“Found it?”
“Well, you have two earrings on now, so you must have been successful.”
“Er, yes. Jolly lucky.” She touched her right earlobe, all the time silently thanking the Almighty that she had forgotten to take her earrings off the previous night. “I found it in the ditch just over there.”
“Well, it seems that you needed to look very carefully. But that is good—you have done a job that I was not looking forward to, clearing all those brambles away! Please, come in and have a coffee—it is the least I can do to thank you.”
“Oh, no, thank you.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because I—”
“Come inside. I insist.”
He caught hold of her arm and steered her firmly towards his house. For a second, Penelope wondered if she should scream. But no one would hear her. She had been unlucky—or plain stupid—and now she was going to pay the price.
M. Louchard led her into his kitchen and released her arm. Penelope was determined not to let him see how scared she was. If she was to be finished off, she was going to maintain a stiff British upper lip to the end.
He took a bottle of plum brandy from a cupboard and poured the dangerously smooth spirit into two glasses.
“Bit early for me,” said Penelope, as he handed one to her. “But you go ahead.”
“Drink!” he said in English. “All!”
She glanced at her watch. Nine thirty in the morning! She was on a very slippery slope. Though would alcohol prove to be a mercy, given whatever she was facing?
But the farmer did not show any sign that he was about to finish her off. In fact, he seemed to be in a remarkably jolly mood. Perhaps he wanted to have a civilised conversation about why he had found it necessary to attempt to shoot her, not once but twice.
“It’s a beautiful morning, is it not?” he trilled.
Penelope agreed that it was. Wasn’t that the kind of observation an executioner would make? She braced for the revelation of his evil intent. Why didn’t he just shoot her from close range, now, instead of spinning it out?
She couldn’t concentrate. Nothing quite made sense. Had he murdered Avore to free Mariette? Had they been seeing each other while her husband was in prison, and he could no longer bear to see her reluctantly accept him back? Perhaps Avore had found out and threatened him. Or worse, threatened to take his fury out on Mariette, thought Penelope; but what has that got to do with me?
Louchard smiled broadly at her.
“You are looking very happy, monsieur. Have you had some good news?” Penelope desperately tried to keep her voice light and even.
She looked around, subtly, for his rifle. Several people had told her he was an expert marksman. Was he so mad that he could no longer hit a large target? Emotional overload could affect physical coordination. But then she thought of the boar he had shot on the night of the fête, in the dark. No, there was nothing wrong with his marksmanship.
“Mme Keet, it has been a very good week for me. Yesterday I had my greatest success!”
“Yesterday?” squeaked Penelope, thinking about the whizz of the bullet that only just missed. And the one on the night of the fête. “What happened yesterday, monsieur?”
“Mariette won again, and at one of the most important contests in Provence.”
“Mme Mariette Avore? It was a beauty contest?”
This time Louchard sat back and laughed properly, a deep raucous chuckle. “Mme Avore! Non, Mariette is the name I gave to my tractor. It was a . . . tribute. I had to leave before dawn to get her to Banon, but it was worth it. Best Tractor of Show at the Banon Agricultural Fair is worth a lot of money. I have nearly paid for this year’s taxes.”
“Were you in Banon for the whole day?”
“You have just seen me returning from there. There was a celebration after the show, you understand. And I had to drive back all the way at thirty kilometres per hour. Along the back roads. It takes some time!”
Penelope smiled. Surreptitiously slipping her glove and its contents into her bag, she took a sip of plum brandy and congratulated the proud tractor owner.
“For a success of this magnitude, a celebration!” He downed his glass and poured another, topping up her glass to the brim. “Drink! Drink!”
She did so, reluctantly.
“Jean-Luc Malpas won’t be happy, though,” chortled M. Louchard.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he sold me the tractor. It was in a terrible state, too, so I got a very good deal. But I worked hard to restore it, to impress the real Mariette. As I polished its curves, I was thinking only of her.”
Bit too much information, thought Penelope. The ferocious plum brandy was now burning its way through her system.
“You should have seen the look on Paul Darrieux’s face at our fête when I won here!”
“Darrieux—the owner of the store at Coustellet?”
“That’s him. Malpas acts as his representative for secondhand vehicles this end of the Luberon. Apparently he told Darrieux that my Mariette had been broken up for parts. He must have pocketed quite a margin on the quiet. Ha!”
Sharp practice, thought Penelope.
Louchard chortled and reached for the bottle again.
“Goodness, that reminds me—I must go! Thank you—and congratulations!” She dived for the door as Louchard had his hands full mid-pour, and made a run for it.
“Mme Keet!”
Penelope looked for cover, prepared for rifle shots, but none came.
The moment that Penelope got i
nside the house, out of breath and feeling quite tipsy from her neighbour’s lethal brew, she called the estate agency in Ménerbes.
“Agence Hublot, bonjour.”
“Clémence, it’s me, Penny.”
“Ah, comment ça va, Penny? Le repas avec M. Charpet, hier, c’était bon?”
“Sod lunch, Clémence. I was shot at again on my way home!”
“Oh, mon dieu! Are you OK?”
“I’m OK, for now. It happened about half past four, near Louchard’s place.”
“Louchard? Penny, calm down. I will come over—on second thought, no. Are you all right to drive?”
“I don’t think I am. Plum brandy.”
“I will come as soon as I can.”
Clémence was as good as her word. In no time at all—goodness only knew how fast she had driven—the Mini Cooper drew up in the familiar flurry of screeching brakes and scattering gravel.
The estate agent was genuinely concerned. For the first time, she looked less than perfectly groomed, with smudged makeup and hair out of place. She looked around nervously behind her as she entered.
“I’ve made us some strong coffee,” said Penelope.
They sat down at the kitchen table. With so much to discuss, it was hard to know where to start.
“That bullet was meant for me, I’m sure of it,” Penelope blurted out. “The first time I was shot at, I could just about rationalise it as the hunters. But yesterday’s shot could not have been a mistake. This morning I went back to the spot and found the bullet.”
Clémence looked surprised. “A bullet, you say? That is unusual.”
“How so?”
“Well, Penny, la chasse—the hunters—almost all use shotguns. They are a little bit safer—even in the hands of the wild men! Shot spreads out quickly once it has left the gun. Makes a flying or running target easier to hit. But shot are smaller and less deadly. Bullets need to be aimed precisely.”
“I know all that! Look, I was standing on the track just below Louchard’s farm, and I felt the wind as it went past my ear.”