by Michael Bond
‘Ciao.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse replaced the handset, consulted his notebook again, then picked up the receiver and, on the off-chance, dialled another number. This time he drew a blank.
‘Promise you won’t answer the door if anyone calls,’ he said, when he kissed Doucette goodbye that evening.
‘You take good care too,’ said Doucette. She slipped a small object into his trouser pocket. ‘And while you are there, see if you can take a few pictures for old time’s sake. You might not get another chance.’
Feeling in his pocket, Monsieur Pamplemousse recognised the Director’s latest toy, a sleek, all-black Leica C-Lux2 digital camera; the latest in a long line of possible replacements for the Leica R4 35-millimetre camera, used for archive recording purposes by staff while on their travels. Apart from the initial expense, it was the latest manifestation of his cost-cutting exercises. The annual saving on film alone would be enormous, but for some years the camera industry had kept one step ahead of him. No sooner had he reached a decision, than something new and better came along.
As had been the case at various times over the years, Monsieur Pamplemousse had been entrusted with delivering a report on its usefulness.
Giving Doucette a final hug, he waited outside the door until he heard the bolt and chain being put into place.
She hadn’t meant it that way, but the phrase ‘might not get another chance’ brought home to him as nothing else would have done the fact that one shouldn’t take things for granted. Nothing in this life was forever. For years now, Le Guide’s issue case, full of the latest equipment to cope with any emergency, had gone everywhere with him. Now, as soon as he handed the camera in, as hand it in he must, he would become an ex-employee, out in the cold, hard world. At least, having refused to part with his old Citroën rather than use a company car, he wouldn’t be without transport.
As for the camera; he would have to start getting used to his old Voigtlander again.
The realisation was compounded some twenty minutes or so later when he was leading the way along the Quai des Grands-Augustins. Mulling over the future, he was caught in the momentary glare of a flash gun.
A couple hovering outside Lapérouse were engaged in a slight altercation.
‘OK. So, how about you taking it next time?’ said the woman. ‘This camera is so old I’m on my second shoulder strap.’
There was another flash as the man took over.
‘Excusez-moi.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse edged past them and made his way inside, quickly announcing his presence before the couple beat him to it.
Registering the barest flicker of surprise when she saw Pommes Frites, the receptionist took his coat, summoned an underling to relieve her of it and deal with the other new arrivals, then led the way up a flight of stairs.
As they turned the first corner he caught sight of the American woman giving her husband a nudge and, camera raised, pointing towards Pommes Frites. Clearly, her worst fears were about to be realised; or her wildest expectations. Whichever, shoulder strap or no shoulder strap, another photo was added to her store of memories.
Expecting to turn left at the top of the stairs into one of the larger salons facing the Seine, Monsieur Pamplemousse found himself entering a corridor to the right instead.
‘The Otéro, monsieur,’ said the girl, motioning him through an open door to the first of a series of small rooms. ‘Bon appetit.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Monsieur Pamplemousse.
‘Absolument, monsieur!’ Looking as near to being offended as decorum allowed, she signalled their arrival to an assistant maître d’ hovering nearby. ‘I took the booking myself.’
Following them into the room, the man eyed Pommes Frites. ‘Would monsieur’s guest like still or sparkling water?’
‘My dog,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘prefers Chateldon.’ He could have added, along with Louis XIV and serious wine tasters everywhere on account of its purity. It was his usual test. A bonus point if they had it, a means of establishing a certain measure of ascendancy at the outset if they didn’t.
‘Of course, monsieur.’
‘My main guest,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse pointedly, ‘has yet to arrive.’
‘Oui, monsieur.’ The assistant maître d’, who looked as though he had seen it all over the years, bowed and withdrew.
Left to his own devices, Monsieur Pamplemousse took out his camera and seized the opportunity to satisfy Doucette’s wishes by taking a few pictures for old time’s sake; he might not get the chance later.
To say the room was small was putting it mildly. Not surprisingly, Pommes Frites was having trouble finding enough space in which to lie down.
The light from the chandelier wasn’t exactly dazzling. Doucette would have been disappointed with the rather too modern bulbs hanging at a rakish angle. Programming the camera’s built-in flash facility, he set to work.
The circular table in the middle, with its two place settings, more than filled the frame.
The upper half of the walls, decorated with ancient trompe l’oeil frescoes in the style of Boucher and Watteau, made satisfactory shots, as did the ornamental carvings on the bottom section. To his left, beyond a curtained window, a small chaise longue, the cushions covered in matching deep red velvet, added a welcome touch of colour, but getting a satisfactory shot of the large mirror above it without seeing his own reflection wasn’t so easy.
A well-worn brass plate to one side bore the simple inscription ‘Curnonsky’, making it one of twenty-seven distributed among leading Paris restaurants by fellow gastronomes on the occasion of the self-styled ‘Prince of Gastronomes’ eightieth birthday. Attached to the best seats, it meant that for the rest of his life he only had to reach for his telephone to be guaranteed a place and a free meal.
He wondered how the author of the 32-volumed La France Gastronomique would have viewed Làperouse now. Chefs had come and gone, but like the big wheel, as one person alighted another got on. He doubted if the restaurant itself had changed a great deal.
Originally built to serve the needs of chicken farmers in need of somewhere to carry out their business transactions, the rooms must have been equally successful in later years when put to other uses if the scratchings on the mirror were anything to go by.
That said, if it were simply a case of getting to know someone in peace and quiet, it was tailor made.
Looking round to his right he noticed a plastic bell-push fixed to the wall; presumably to summon a waiter when one was required. Idly wondering if it was functioning, he pressed it.
The door opened almost immediately and a commis waiter appeared with a bowl and a bottle of Chateldon. Having shown Pommes Frites the label, he solemnly decanted it. At the same time, the assistant maître d’ entered with the menu and the wine list.
Declining the offer of an aperitif before his guest arrived, Monsieur Pamplemousse waited until the door was closed before settling down to study what was on offer. There was no harm in being ahead of the game early on.
The fixed price menu included a reasonable selection for all four courses.
Mentally opting for l’oeuf Pierrot aux truffes, whatever that was – the mere mention of truffles did the trick – he decided on a noix S. Jacques risotto to follow, and perhaps the Soufflé Lapérouse after the cheese. Doucette was right; he might as well make the most of his opportunities while they lasted.
He knew one thing; having the door closed meant the heat was rapidly becoming more and more oppressive. The sound of lapping suggested Pommes Frites was feeling it too.
Parting the net curtains and feeling a draft of hot air rising from a radiator, he opened the window slightly and, seeing a restaurant on the other side of the road full of diners, automatically took out his camera.
Les Bouquinistes had a good write-up in Le Guide and old habits to record such moments died hard. So what if he was taken for a tourist?
Turning back away from the window, he decided to take one last shot of the room
.
Flattening himself against the wall, he zoomed out, pressed the shutter release button halfway down to bring the picture into sharp focus, and was about to take a picture of the door, including as much as possible of the gilded surround, when it swung open.
Expecting to see a waiter, the viewing screen was filled instead by an elegant figure that wouldn’t have disgraced the front cover of some glossy fashion magazine.
He was about to say there must be some mistake, when he saw the receptionist hovering in the background and hurriedly changed his mind.
The first time he had queried her hadn’t gone down too well. Twice might be one too many.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was hard to say who was the most taken aback; the person standing in the doorway, Monsieur Pamplemousse, or Pommes Frites, who couldn’t decide whether to wag his tail or not. In the end he left it at half mast.
During the split second it took the camera to readjust to the change of scene the new arrival paused and smiled directly into the lens.
Monsieur Pamplemousse instinctively zoomed in for a tighter shot. If nothing else, it was a good test of the camera’s ability to cope with all eventualities. Almost at once a pin sharp picture appeared on the screen.
Mentally awarding it ten out of ten, he pressed the shutter-release button fully home and, as he did so, he became aware of something odd about the person’s face, but by then it was too late.
The operation completed, he glanced up, and realised what had been bothering him. Although one of the subjects’s eyes had been staring straight towards the lens, the other was focused on Pommes Frites.
‘Buonasera, signorita,’ he said. ‘Mi chiamo Aristide Pamplemousse. E tu come ti Maria?’
Monsieur Leclercq was right about one thing: the eye nearest to him immediately lost its sparkle, effectively disposing of the girl’s knowledge of Italian and presumably with it, her so-called connections to the Vatican.
‘Good evening,’ he translated. ‘My name is Aristide Pamplemousse, and you must be Maria.’
‘How did you guess?’
The girl entered the room, and as she turned to close the door he seized the opportunity to carry out a quick survey.
Clearly, he was privileged to be taking part in an early viewing of the fruits of her shopping expedition with Monsieur Leclercq.
The knee-length white satin dress she was wearing would have brought about an impatient snort from Doucette had she come across it in one of her magazines. From the way it clung to her body it might have been made from some form of semi-transparent plastic film, more suited to a hot summer’s day on the promenade in Cannes than a winter evening in Paris. If it was ‘off the shelf’, then it must have been awaiting her arrival, for she filled it to perfection; a walking tribute to the art of haute couture.
A matching handbag and shoes completed the ensemble.
Monsieur Leclercq was right in one respect: the girl could fairly be described as being a pretty little thing, but having said that, his immediate reaction was he wouldn’t have trusted her any further than he could have thrown her, and given his present surroundings, that didn’t amount to much.
Her grey-green eyes were never still, darting here, there and everywhere; so much so, he wondered if the moments when they appeared to be out of synch with each other were simply a reflection of his own inability to keep up with the constant changes.
And yet … and yet … perhaps it was the overall whiteness, but she had that indefinable quality some women are born with; a kind of wide-eyed ‘please help me’ innocence that many men find hard to ignore, despite all the risks they know they are running.
Planting a warm kiss on both cheeks, she curled up on the banquette next to his chair, coming to rest in a cloud of lime, citron, grapefruit, and mandarin; a perfume that was immediately recognisable since Doucette had only that morning listed the ingredients to him.
The last named was particularly apposite, since additional confirmation of her identity came with the brief glimpse he’d had of a canal boat tattooed on what Monsieur Leclercq quaintly called her right mandarine. Although firmly anchored, it was rising and falling in a tantalising manner as though riding an incoming tide.
‘Eau d’Hadrien,’ he said. There was no harm in snatching a few bonus points while he could.
Looking suitably impressed, his guest nevertheless managed to recover her composure in remarkably quick time.
‘Monsieur Aristide Pamplemousse,’ she countered. ‘Late of the Paris Sûretè.’ She savoured the words as though they referred to one of the chef’s specials. ‘No wonder Véronique refused to say who I was meeting.’
‘You are not in your working clothes,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Don’t tell me you have been defrocked.’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ said Maria. ‘Anyway, I have had a career change. The habit went with my previous job.’
He tried to place her accent and, having failed, decided to stick with French.
‘It must have been very sudden …’
‘You could say that. Some offers happen faster than others. You turn a corner, and hey presto …’
‘But before that,’ he persisted, ‘you had no qualms about dressing up as a nun?’
‘Why should I? Don’t tell me it is against the law.’
‘I was thinking of the laws of propriety,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Some people might take exception to it.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ said Maria. ‘Different people have different tastes. A lot of men go for that kind of thing.’
‘Am I right in thinking it was you who chose this particular venue?’
‘I happen to like old things,’ said Maria. ‘Not that I don’t like new experiences too,’ she added.
Glancing round the room, she took in the faded decor. ‘This must be as old as Methuselah. Just look at that mirror. You can hardly see your face in it for all the scratches. As for the paintings; very Garden of Eden, if you believe in that kind of thing. Like how the world began – Adam and Eve and all that stuff, don’t you agree?’
‘I don’t picture an old man with a beard watching over us, if that’s what you mean,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘or even an old lady with a beard, if it comes to that.
‘It may be part of my early training but, like Lord Byron, I deny nothing, although I doubt everything. In the meantime I keep the Big Bang theory in reserve.’
Moistening her lips, Maria eyed him with new interest.
‘Do you, now?’
‘Although, even then,’ he said hastily, ‘I would have trouble picturing there being nothing before the world came about …’
‘You mean no foreplay … that kind of thing?’
Sensing he might be getting into rather deeper water than he had intended, Monsieur Pamplemousse reached for the bell push. ‘I think it is time we ordered.’
The assistant maître d’ must have been hovering outside, for he entered almost at once, notepad and a second menu at the ready.
‘You choose,’ said Maria. ‘You’re the expert.’
Ordering two glasses of champagne as an aperitif, Monsieur Pamplemousse stuck to his original plan; the egg and truffle concoction, risotto with scallops, and the soufflé Lapérouse, adding a bottle of Meursault to accompany the main course, and a steak haché with a bone on the side for Pommes Frites.
‘I’m in your hands,’ said Maria, when he looked at her enquiringly.
No sooner had the man departed than a commis waiter arrived with the champagne. It must be taken for granted in such surroundings.
He took heart in the fact that at least the risotto and the soufflé would take time to prepare. Otherwise, given the present rate of progress, he would be hard put discover all the things he felt it would be good to know, and there might not be a better opportunity.
With that end in view, he lingered over pronouncing on the wine when it was presented. Green-gold, it was full-bodied and … he couldn’t help inwardly compar
ing it with his guest – full of promise.
‘You do know the way to a girl’s heart,’ said Maria, when they were alone at last. She sipped her champagne. ‘What shall we talk about now?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse decided on the direct approach. He suddenly felt himself back in his old office at the Quai des Orfèvres, rather than a tiny room at Lapérouse.
‘Who are you working for?’
Maria pulled a face. ‘I was hoping it would be something nice.’
‘Vous êtes ravissante, madamoiselle,’ he responded. ‘Is that what you would like to hear me say?’
She looked at him suspiciously. Then, somewhat to his surprise said: ‘Only if you mean it.’
He was saved having to reply by the arrival of the first course.
‘A girl’s got her dreams,’ said Maria, when they were alone again.
‘Sometimes,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘the reality can be less satisfactory than the dream. It is invariably more costly in the long run. I can only repeat the question. Who are you working for?’
‘Le Guide. As if you didn’t know.’
‘I have been away,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse.
‘But if you are not employed by them any more, why are you so interested in me?’
‘How do you know I am not?’
If she was thrown, it didn’t show. To her credit, she gave as good as she got.
‘Word gets around. Come to that, who are you working for?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse ignored the question. ‘You are not French,’ he said.
‘No,’ said Maria. ‘But so what?’
‘Because, if you were French, you would know that we live by rules and regulations. It is all part of a Grand Design. French is not, as many outsiders believe it to be, simply the language of love; it is also the language of property rights, contracts and many other things to do with the law, and it is very exact.
‘It began in 1804 with the Code Civil; Napoleon’s monument to the French language, spelling out in 2,281 short edicts the rules governing everything in a person’s life, from birth to death.