“He drove down to Nice to pick up some flowers at the airport. I would know anything that my son knows.”
“In that case, perhaps you can tell me who left a bouquet of roses on Lisette Jarlaud’s grave.”
“Why would you ask my son a thing like that?”
“Because, from the green paper around them, I suspect they came from this shop. I’m sure you would know.”
She sputtered. “They—they were white roses and they were placed on the Jarlaud girl’s grave by a young farmer. He had never been in the shop before, but I recognized him. Achille Savord! The Jarlaud girl had many such friends. Young and old… You should question them—all of them—not my son. I can tell you for a fact, he would have nothing to do with her sort!”
“And did the Jarlaud girl ever come here to buy flowers?”
“As a matter of fact she did! But only once. Last year… My son was off somewhere, and I was alone in the shop. She wanted a small bouquet for her daughter’s birthday. Everybody knows she had two children. And no husband! I let her have a few carnations that were not too fresh.”
“Merci, Madame. For the information.”
She looked startled. “Information? But I…”
“Bonjour, Madame.” He left the shop without glancing back.
Heading toward the square, he saw that the sky was churning with clouds. Another storm rolling down the Rhône valley?
Damiot realized that he was hungry. He had barely touched his lunch, and it would be hours before dinner would be served at the Auberge.
His hip throbbed from all the walking at the Château. Back at the Auberge he would soak in a hot tub and have a long nap.
Rest his aching bones, in preparation for another visit to the Château after dinner. Meanwhile, perhaps, a sandwich or…
Madame Mussot’s! Would she still have her apricot tarts?
Damiot walked to the patisserie on the corner and was enveloped by a familiar mouth-watering aroma as he opened the door. Madame Mussot and a young girl were busy behind the counter, serving several customers. Madame smiled when she recognized him.
He hung his hat and waterproof on wall hooks and then sank cautiously onto one of the metal chairs as he glanced at the trays of pastries in the display cases.
“M’sieur Damiot!”
“Madame!” He got to his feet as she came from behind the counter, hand outstretched, beaming in welcome.
“I’ve been expecting you!” She shook his hand firmly, kissing him on both cheeks. “Ever since they told me you’d come back.”
“You’re looking well, Madame.”
“No complaints! Everything goes as usual. Mine is still the only patisserie in Courville. So there’s no competition! I know exactly what you’ll be wanting. Told the girl to set them aside, this morning, when I heard you were here. It will only take a moment.” She turned and, waving the girl ahead, marched her toward the kitchen.
Damiot realized as he sat down again that he was smiling in anticipation.
Madame Mussot must be in her late seventies but, in spite of her gray hair, looked twenty years younger. Petite and slim, as though she never touched her own pastries! She had been his mother’s closest friend and confidante.
Madame returned with a platter of tarts, followed by the girl with a tray holding a coffeepot and dishes. Damiot stared at the golden apricots in their nests of pastry. “Six of them?”
“You ate five last time.” Madame placed them on the table as the girl set a plate in front of him and poured the coffee.
“In all Paris, Madame, I’ve never found apricot tarts like yours!”
“Bon appetit, M’sieur. Pardon…” She hurried toward the counter, where more customers were waiting.
He had never been able to analyze the golden glaze covering the fruit, but there was a hint of lemon and, he suspected, honey. Finishing his first tart, he finally tasted the coffee, relaxing in a glow of contentment, savoring the moment.
He poured a second cup and reached for another pastry. “Caught in the act!”
Damiot looked up, startled, to see a girl in a pale green dress. Long blond hair…“Mademoiselle Tendrell!” He lurched to his feet, still holding the pastry in his fingers.
“I never imagined I might find you here, Monsieur Inspecteur! Devouring apricot tarts in public.”
“But, I—I’m…”
“The incriminating evidence half-eaten!”
Damiot laughed as he placed the remainder of his pastry on the plate. “Won’t you join me, Mademoiselle? I was hoping to see you again.”
“Were you?” She sank onto the other chair, hanging her shoulder bag over the back. “I’ve been doing my usual Saturday chores for our cook. Madame Mussot’s is always my last stop.”
“Have one of these apricot tarts. They’re my favorites.” He glanced at the remainder of the tart on his plate.
“They’re also my favorites!” She took a tart in her fingers and bit into it. “We enjoyed meeting you, last night, Allan and I…”
“I look forward to seeing Monsieur Tendrell another time.”
“You must come up to the farm again. Perhaps dinner, one night next week? Allan has so few friends here. He’s painting this afternoon because the light’s rather good, but one of the farmhands told me it should rain tonight.”
“More rain?”
“Allan says he had enough rain in England for the rest of his life. It’s very bad for arthritis…”
As Jenny chattered, Damiot signaled for Madame Mussot’s assistant, motioning for more tarts and fresh coffee, but missing nothing that the English girl was saying.
“Are you enjoying your stay at the Auberge?”
“Indeed, yes. The food is excellent.”
“Michel’s a first-rate chef. At least Allan thinks so. I’m not really into food… I suppose like all the other males, you’ve fallen in love with Aurore!”
“Is that what usually happens?”
“My father is most certainly in love with her! For a time last year, I thought they might be getting married. Which of course would be fine! But unfortunately,” she continued eating the pastry as she talked, “Aurore has this passion for Michel! Perhaps because her husband was also a chef. Of course, Michel will never marry her. He’s rather a Don Juan, you know.”
“A Don Juan?”
“Women know it but they still fall for him. Allan gets very uptight if Michel so much as looks at me.”
“You like this young man?”
“Like him? I find him amusing. Intelligent and unpredictable. Actually, I s’pose, I see Michel now and again because it would annoy Papa if he found out. We meet when I know Allan will be busy painting in his studio. That’s the only time I can take the car. I tell him I’m going down to the village, but instead I drive into the hills, where Michel and I have a bottle of wine at some roadside cafe and talk for hours. Or, if I’m certain that Allan’s going to be out for the evening, I phone Michel at the Auberge and tell him he can come up to the farmhouse.”
“What if Aurore answers the phone?”
“I call in the morning after she leaves to do the marketing or during the dinner hour, when the phone only rings in the kitchen.”
“Isn’t that risky?”
“I enjoy taking risks. Like riding my mare across the fields in an electric storm. Dangerous, I s’pose, but utterly thrilling!”
“I saw you yesterday morning, racing past the Château.”
“I’d just had a smashing argument with Allan at breakfast, about Michel. Papa suspected I had seen him the night before. Actually, that was one time I hadn’t! It’s all so terribly involved, because Allan’s in love with Aurore and she’s in love with Michel. And, I suspect, Michel isn’t in love with anybody but his handsome self.”
“Then you’re not in love with him?”
&n
bsp; “Certainly not! Our relationship is disgustingly innocent.”
Damiot watched Jenny finish her first tart, licking flakes of pastry from her lower lip. “I’ve been eating Madame’s apricot tarts since I was a boy. Madame says I managed five the last time I was here.” He served himself another one. “You told me last night that someone watches you ride past the Château…”
“That strange old man. He’s completely weird!”
“The caretaker? Pouchet…”
“He’s the one!”
“You’ve seen him through the gates?”
“He keeps out of sight, but I sense someone lurking in the shrubbery. I think he stands there, mornings, waiting for me…”
“Why would he do that?”
“I’ve read stories, in newspapers, about nasty old men who get their kicks watching young girls. That’s all he can do, I s’pose. Watch, not touch… You don’t think he’s the one who did away with those two girls, do you?”
“I know nothing about that.”
“But you must suspect something…”
“Suspicions are not facts. Only facts lead to answers in a murder investigation, but to get answers someone must ask the right questions.”
“And do you have questions about our Courville murders?”
“They will remain unasked.” He smiled. “Except there’s something I’d like to ask you.”
“Lovely!” Her eyes brightened in anticipation.
“You mentioned a black Ferrari last night, in relation to those two murders.”
“Yes…”
“Where did you hear about this car?”
“I’ve seen it! Twice.”
“What?”
“The first time was several months ago and the last was just before Lisette Jarlaud’s body was found.”
“Was the first time before or after the other murder?”
“I’ve thought about that, but I can’t remember. In fact, until last night I had never associated the car with those murders. Then, as we were talking, I found myself wondering…”
“Where did you see the car?”
“In front of our farmhouse. Both times. I have a habit of walking through the garden just before bed. The fresh air usually helps me sleep. I was standing there, breathing deeply, when I heard a powerful motor approaching…”
“From the village?”
“From the other direction. Both nights. Going rather fast, but it seemed to slow as it came closer. I was interested, of course, to see a shiny new black Ferrari. And surprised when it slowed even more as it passed, as though the driver were looking at me.”
“You saw his face?”
“I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. Could barely make out a head covered by one of those tight leather skullcap things racing drivers wear, goggles over the eyes and leather gloves on the hands. Gave me the oddest sensation! We stared at each other, I s’pose, for a matter of seconds—though it seemed much longer—and then he revved the motor and roared away. Like one of those unidentified flying objects they report in the papers…”
“Most curious. Probably someone from a nearby city driving down to Cannes.”
“I s’pose…”
“Won’t you have another pastry?”
“Perhaps just one.” Snatching it, childlike, from the platter. “This’ll be my third.”
“I’m still one ahead of you.” He sipped his coffee. “Have you never been inside the Château?”
“Not once! Allan has, although he won’t tell me how he managed it. He says there’s no monster, but Michel thinks there is…”
“Does he?”
“Michel was never inside, either! He’s only repeating what he hears in the village. He plays billiards several nights every week, after he finishes work at the Auberge. The villagers talk of nothing but the monster and those two murders.”
“And you think there’s nobody in the Château but that caretaker?”
“I didn’t say that. No… I suspect there’s a woman there.”
“What woman?”
“I’ve no idea. But for months now, I’ve had a feeling that Allan visits the Château to meet someone. And, knowing my dear father, it has to be an attractive woman. I do know that last summer there was a child there…
“A child?”
“I saw him one morning, as I rode past the gates. The shrubbery was so heavy I couldn’t really be certain, but it looked like a boy. I s’pose he thought I wouldn’t be able to see him because of the leaves. His face seemed to float between the bushes, like a ghost without a body. He had long dark hair and…”
“You’re positive it was a boy?”
“I s’pose it could’ve been a girl…”
“Perhaps some local child?”
“If it was, I’ve never seen him in the village.”
“Would you recognize the face, if you did?”
“Only the eyes. His face was a blur. But in that instant, before the mare carried me past, I looked straight into his eyes. Children’s eyes are the saddest in the whole world! I think when we’re very young we know things that later on we forget. Important and terrible things… Eat your tart!”
“Yes, I will.” Damiot frowned as he picked it up and took a bite.
Could that figure on the terrace have been a child playing a trick on the villagers?
What child?
CHAPTER 12
When he returned to the Auberge he switched on the lamps in his room and closed every curtain to shut out the rain. He tossed his Paris paper on the bed with the Simenon. Unwrapping the small torch, he slipped it into a pocket of his damp waterproof, which he then hung in the armoire.
The room was chilly, and he immediately ran a hot tub.
Undressed, he stood before the long bathroom mirror.
His scars were hideous. Each time he looked at them he was repulsed by the damage those doctors had done to his body. He had seen hundreds of dead bodies without flinching, but the desecration of his own flesh repelled him. The livid scars would be with him for the rest of his life.
After a long soak in the steaming water, he slipped into his robe and stretched out on the bed, placing the Simenon within reach on the bedside table. Save that for the first night, he couldn’t sleep.
He opened the newspaper but, turning the pages, found no crime news.
The paper said it was raining in Paris. Checking the date, he discovered that it was Wednesday’s paper. The day before he left Paris! No matter. He hadn’t seen a newspaper since leaving the hospital.
Turning more pages, he became interested in a political crisis. Same old politicians, new scandals…
* * * *
He wakened with a start, pushing the newspaper off his face.
Checking his wristwatch on the bedside table, he saw that he had slept for several hours. He flung the paper aside, jumped up from the bed, and went to the nearest pair of windows. Driving rain and a flooded garden! There would be no visit to the Château tonight.
He heard a dog barking in the darkness. The forlorn sound came from the front. Probably a stray, running loose on the avenue.
Damiot closed the curtains, shutting out the rain, and went into the bath, where he splashed his eyes with cold water to bring himself awake.
* * * *
Studying the menu, he saw that the specialty for the evening was ratatouille.
Only six other guests in the dining room—three middle-aged couples. The chef himself served Damiot, with both of the waiters and the garçon in attendance. One waiter removed the cover from a large earthen casserole on a serving cart. The other set a plate of ratatouille before Damiot, after Michel spooned it from a silver ladle, with fresh asparagus and gratin dauphinois in separate dishes.
Damiot sniffed the rich aroma. “Smells magnificent!” He p
icked up a fork, realizing that Giroud was waiting for him to taste his creation. As he did so he noticed Madame Bouchard at her desk, smiling in anticipation. He glanced up at the chef—remembering what Jenny Tendrell had said about him—as he took the first mouthful. Aurore Bouchard was in love with this young man and, quite obviously, the English girl was at least attracted to him…
Giroud leaned forward slightly. “Monsieur?”
“Haven’t tasted a genuine ratatouille in years! Can’t find anything like this in Paris.”
“Plaisir, Monsieur Damiot.” Michel Giroud bowed, his starched toque blanche stiff as a bishop’s miter. He waved the waiters ahead of him toward the kitchen, followed by Claude pushing the serving cart.
Damiot settled down to enjoy his dinner. The ratatouille was excellent, but no better than his father used to make…
Or was memory deceiving him?
He remembered his father, after Chez Damiot closed for the night, stirring a big pot of ratatouille and filling three plates. The family eating in the kitchen, sopping up the last drop of the stew with crusts of bread left from other people’s dinners. Afterward, he would always help his mother with the dishes. All the tableware from the restaurant. Pots and pans. Two hours of hard work before they could go upstairs, where his father would already be snoring…
Damiot finished his carafe of vin blanc with a local cheese and asked Jean-Paul to serve coffee, as usual, in the lounge. He left the dining room unobserved by Madame Bouchard, who had disappeared into the kitchen, and went into the lounge.
Relaxing near the open fire, he pondered several questions.
Was it possible that Pouchet was the monster? Or was it that small boy Jenny Tendrell had glimpsed through the entrance gates?
He wondered if Bardou was sleeping after his hot toddy…
“Jean-Paul said you didn’t want your Calvados tonight.”
He looked around to see Aurore Bouchard. “Not tonight. Merci!” Rising clumsily from the low fauteuil. “Won’t you sit down?”
“For a moment.” She sank onto a sofa, facing him.
“Another excellent dinner!” Lowering himself into the armchair again, favoring his hip. “Pity there were so few people to enjoy it.”
The Provence Puzzle Page 10