Monsieur Pamplemousse and the French Solution

by Michael Bond

  ‘One shouldn’t ignore other factors. Partly, it is a case of cause and effect. After 9/11 many Americans gave up flying and took to their cars because they felt safer. Result: deaths on the road rose by a measurable amount.

  ‘Someone in France invents a new perfume smelling of teak and trees in the rain forests of Brazil trees are chopped down to extract the essence.

  ‘The really major down-side of mobile phones is the other uses they can be put to, such as triggering off things from a long distance.

  ‘The bomb that killed over two hundred people in a Bali nightclub was detonated that way. Then came the bombing in Madrid; 191 people on ten commuter trains killed during a three-minute period. After that came the London Underground bombings.’

  ‘But could one be used to break into Le Guide’s files?’

  ‘There is no reason why not. Current models are perfectly capable of scanning documents. Once scanned, the information can be compressed and tidied up electronically.

  ‘The Xerox Research Centre in Grenoble has developed a phone that is capable of photographing anything up to ten pages at a time and turning it into black and white editable text ready for transmitting by fax or any other way you wish.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse gave a sigh. ‘Where will it all end?’

  ‘Things have a habit of going the full circle,’ said Martine.

  ‘Currently, mobiles are in much the same position as television receivers were a few years ago. Remember Bruce Springsteen’s song, “57 Channels and nothing on”? He ended up blasting his to pieces with a .44 Magnum. That was in 1992. Think how it would go now. More is not necessarily better.’

  ‘I shall hate you for the rest of my life,’ suggested Monsieur Pamplemousse, paraphrasing the song he’d seen advertised on a hoarding only a few evenings ago.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘And mobile telephones?’

  ‘When things reach saturation point, people will turn to something else. The joy of taking out an old photographic album is already a thing of the past for many families; they have so many images stored on their computer. It could be due for a revival.’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘So to sum up, someone could work on our files at their leisure and afterwards feed it back into the system?’

  ‘If they are computer literate and in a position of being able to choose their moment. That is why I feel it is likely to be someone inside.’

  Martine began clearing the table. ‘Would Pommes Frites care for a little more?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Yes, I am sure he would. No, he shouldn’t. He has an important day ahead of him tomorrow and he needs all his faculties.’

  Martime listened as he explained about the forthcoming tasting.

  ‘Things are getting serious,’ she said. ‘In that case, he had better not have any of this.’ She produced two bowls of a chocolate-coloured dessert from her refrigerator.

  ‘I have added a little Calvados and it wouldn’t be good news if he woke up tomorrow morning with a hangover.

  ‘It is one of Monsieur This’s inventions: Chocolate Chantilly. Molecular gastronomy at its best. If you know what happens to food when you cook it, you can make it work for you rather than against you. It may look and taste like cream, but I guarantee it is all in the mind.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse sampled his. Ambrosia was the only word to describe it. ‘I daresay a small spoonful wouldn’t come amiss,’ he said, aware that his every movement was being watched.

  From the expression on Pommes Frites’ face a moment later, he was clearly of the same opinion.

  ‘You are in the wrong business,’ he said to Martine. ‘If you ever think of opening a restaurant I guarantee you would have a Stock Pot in no time at all.’

  Martine shook her head. ‘Perish the thought. I value my freedom too much.’

  ‘Returning to basics,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘What if two people share a phone? Wouldn’t the other person realise what was happening?’

  ‘They could be using separate SIM cards,’ said Martine, after a moment’s thought.

  ‘Does that mean …?’

  ‘I think I know the answer to “who”,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse simply. ‘That’s two down and only one to go.’

  ‘In that case, what is the problem? I am not exactly looking for work, but if you want to take me on board and make it official …’

  ‘It is very kind of you,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘but we need to tread carefully. Sending out the wrong signals could be dangerous.’

  He filled her in with the rest of the picture.

  ‘I take your point,’ said Martine. ‘I understand the English have an apt phrase for it.’

  ‘They call it the “short and curlies” syndrome,’ agreed Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘You see the predicament.’

  He looked around, aware that for some reason Pommes Frites, was on his feet, padding restlessly to and fro.

  ‘Perhaps the Calvados wasn’t such a good idea after all,’ said Martine.

  ‘It could be a call of nature,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘But I think he is suffering from premonitions. I recognise the symptoms.

  ‘Anyway.’ He rose to his feet. ‘It has been a lovely evening and it has helped clear my mind. I can’t thank you enough.’

  ‘All good things come to an end,’ said Martine.

  ‘One day of these days,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘you must meet my wife. But first I would like to introduce you to her sister. She would benefit from a few lessons, especially when it comes to tripes à la mode de Caen.’

  ‘I promise to read up on the subject,’ said Martine. ‘I’m sure Monsieur Blumenthal will have some ideas; like serving it alongside some deep-fried oranges in batter perhaps …’

  ‘Anything would be an improvement,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse.

  Bending down, Martine gave Pommes Frites a farewell pat. ‘Good luck for tomorrow.’

  ‘Sparing his blushes,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘he has one unique quality that sets him apart from other dogs: discrimination. Given a choice, he doesn’t automatically gobble down the first thing he comes to. He sniffs everything, and only then does he go for what in his opinion is the best.’

  It was impossible to know if Pommes Frites had taken in what was said about him, but during the drive home he appeared lost in thought. Normally the most accommodating of passengers, anticipating corners and bends like a seasoned pillion passenger on a motorcycle, he had perfected the art of shifting his large frame at exactly the right moment. But when his mind was on other things, keeping a straight course demanded Monsieur Pamplemousse’s undivided attention, so he wasn’t sorry when the journey came to an end.

  His answerphone showed there had been four calls while they were out; one from Jacques, two from Doucette, and the fourth from Sicily. He rang Doucette back first.

  She sounded relieved. ‘I was getting worried, Aristide.’

  ‘I have been well looked after, Couscous. You will never guess what I was given to eat. Gigot de sept heures.’

  ‘No wonder you are late back,’ said Doucette. ‘I hope you won’t expect it too often in the future. Guess what we had …’

  ‘Not …’

  ‘I am afraid so.’ Doucette lowered her voice. ‘Agathe said she knew if she didn’t cook it I would be disappointed.’

  ‘The answer,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘may lie in the molecules.’

  ‘You must be joking,’ said Doucette. ‘Don’t tell her that. She will have a fit.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse continued undeterred. ‘I have put out feelers on the subject. In the meantime, keep smiling, Couscous. Worse things happen at sea.’

  Jacques must have been awaiting his call. He answered halfway through the first ring.

  ‘BRINKS were pretty cagey about your man. He is no more a member of staff than I am. They immediately went cold when I mentioned his name. Quoted the Data Pr
otection Act, would you believe …’

  ‘They were within their rights, of course,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse.

  ‘Does that make it any better? Anyway, twisting their arm, I gleaned the fact that he was with them for a short while; long enough to pinch one of their uniforms.

  ‘I didn’t tell them I knew where it was. For what it’s worth, they let fall the fact that he’s an “ink addict”. Not that that means much these days; tattoos are currently the “in” thing. And they aren’t all sticks-on either; applying the needle is a big money spinner. If the customers are female, they often want them done in the most surprising places, and that costs …

  ‘Or so I’m told,’ Jacques added hastily.

  ‘I believe you,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Thousands wouldn’t.’

  ‘Silly question,’ said Jacques, ‘but do you have a photo?’

  ‘It wouldn’t do you much good,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, thinking of the dark glasses.

  ‘I could have a go …’ he began, and then broke off as a series of distant bells began ringing in his head; the phoney accent, Maria’s tattoo … ‘I think I know where I might be able to get hold of one. Leave it with me.

  ‘Also, just to warn you, it could be another case of my giving you the wrong name. You might try under Dubois …’

  ‘Dubois? Dubois … wasn’t he the vilain who cropped up the last time you had a computer break-in? Had it in for your boss; something to do with an old score he wanted to settle.’

  ‘Old isn’t the word,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘It goes back to the early Sixties when Monsieur Leclercq was an inspector. The last big amendment to the Code Napoleon had just come into force – the Code de la Consommation – and he caught Dubois trying pass off a run-of-the mill chicken for a Poularde de Bresse.’

  ‘A despot of the very worst kind,’ said Jacques dryly. ‘Stop at nothing.’

  ‘That was the trouble.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse rose to the Director’s defence.

  ‘When Monsieur Leclercq said he was reporting him he drew a knife …’

  ‘Touché,’ said Jacques. ‘And after he came out of prison, didn’t he make a play for your Madame Grante before he got nabbed?’

  ‘That’s the one. It would be interesting to know if he is still inside.’

  While they were talking, Pommes Frites drifted out to the kitchen, picked up his blanket, and carried it off to another room, curling up on the floor at the foot of his master’s bed. If he was going to be on guard duty, he might as well be comfortable.

  Shortly afterwards, Monsieur Pamplemousse followed on behind and, without even bothering to undress, closed the door behind him, turned off the light and lay back with his eyes closed, trying to marshal his thoughts into some kind of order.

  The Director’s situation was clear enough, but he found himself wondering how Madame Grante fitted into it all, or himself and Pommes Frites, come to that. Clearly if it were Dubois’s handiwork, he wanted all three of them out of the way. The threats to Jo Jo, the attempt to discredit himself and Pommes Frites, bore the hallmarks of long-term planning. Talking to Jacques had set him wondering if Le Guide’s Head of Accounts still had a picture of Dubois by her bedside. More than likely she had thrown it away long ago, but you never knew.

  So much had happened over the past few days it was like trying to assemble a giant jigsaw puzzle against the clock. His eyelids grew heavy, and before he was aware of what was happening, he fell into a dream involving the proposed tasting.

  It was taking place in the Director’s office, and it involved a group of his closest friends and their pets, all of whom, including the dogs, were dressed for the occasion.

  Towering above the competition, Pommes Frites seemed to have got it into his head that he was being tested on what not to eat. Blindfolded, he sank his teeth into what he clearly thought was a piece of sub-standard meat and, having discovered it was a dachshund, quickly spat it out. The victim gave a loud howl as it shot across the room, rebounded off a Chihuahua groping its way across Monsieur Leclercq’s desk, and landed face down in a waste bin.

  Understandably frightened out of its wits, the Chihuahua leapt onto Monsieur Leclercq’s chair, where it relieved itself in no uncertain manner. Meanwhile, an Irish Terrier, not wishing to be left out of things, deposited a sizeable bronze on the carpet.

  To cap it all, an immaculately clad miniature Italian Greyhound, having blundered into the offering while trying to escape, was so upset it elicited screams from all around as it began looking for something suitable against which it could wipe itself clean.

  Above the hubbub he could hear Monsieur Leclercq’s voice shouting his name: ‘Pamplemousse! Pamplemousse, where are you?’

  But by then he was too far away to answer, let alone care.

  Having spotted Pommes Frites shedding his blindfold and making a bolt for it, he found himself careering after him on a bicycle.

  Approaching a particularly steep section of a mountain road, Pommes Frites cleared it with a single bound, disappearing into a bank of low cloud.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse was less fortunate. His bicycle having developed a squeak, the pedals became harder and harder to turn. His feet grew heavier and heavier with the effort, almost as though they were made of lead. And as the squeak turned into a groan, so the clouds got darker and darker, until they threatened to engulf him …

  He tried brushing them aside, but they refused to move, and the more he tried the harder it became … until … he gave one last heave and woke to find he was clutching one of Pommes Frites’ paws.

  Almost immediately, he heard the familiar sound of his key finder. It seemed to be coming from another room …

  Struggling into a sitting position and forcing himself awake, his first thought was to reach for the light switch, but smelling gas and realising the slightest spark could cause an explosion, he felt for his torch instead.

  Undoing the bedroom door, he rushed into the kitchen and shone the light towards the stove. Registering the oven door was open, he hastily turned off the tap and made a dive for the window.

  Pommes Frites joined him, and together they took a deep breath. Never had a draft of cold air felt so welcome.

  A quick search of the rest of the apartment proved fruitless, and the hallway outside their apartment was in darkness. A single sweep with the torch showed the bulb from the overhead light had been removed.

  Nose down, Pommes Frites made his way towards the lift. It was a forlorn hope, but Monsieur Pamplemousse pressed the down button, stifling his impatience as it seemed to take forever to arrive.

  As he feared, the trail petered out not far from their apartment block, suggesting that whoever the intruder was, he or she had used a car.

  Returning to the living room, he automatically glanced up at the wall clock. Expecting it to show two, or perhaps even three o’clock, he was surprised to see it was still only a few minutes after eleven.

  Checking through his list of dialling codes, he reached for the phone.

  It was a long call and he had no sooner replaced the receiver than there was an incoming one.

  ‘If I didn’t know you better,’ said Jacques, ‘I would say you were trying to avoid me.’

  ‘I was phoning Sicily,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Monsieur Leclercq’s wife has an uncle there …’

  ‘So I have heard tell.’

  ‘I thought it was time he was brought up to date.’

  ‘There are some things I would rather not know,’ said Jacques unhappily.

  ‘It might be as well if you did,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse.

  As succinctly as possible, he spelt out what had happened. ‘If it hadn’t been for Pommes Frites keeping guard I might not be here now.

  ‘I gave Chantal’s uncle your number,’ he continued, breaking the silence, ‘in case anything untoward happens. Uncle Caputo doesn’t waste time once he has his mind set on something, and there could be other things you would rather not know about.’<
br />
  ‘Thanks a heap,’ said Jacques. ‘Don’t think I’m ungrateful, but the only reason I rang was to let you know Dubois came out of prison six months ago. Good behaviour, so they say.’

  ‘It is all relative,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse.

  ‘You should know,’ said Jacques. He hesitated. ‘Joking aside, I’m glad you’re all right, Aristide.’

  ‘I have Pommes Frites to thank for that,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Some of his presents come in very useful at times.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Had Monsieur Pamplemousse been called upon to describe the scene in Le Guide’s fourth-floor boardroom the following morning, he would have been hard put to find the right words without resorting to his thesaurus. Even then, it certainly wouldn’t have come under the sub-heading of TASTE: meaning flavour, gusto, palate, relish or savour, but rather UNSAVOURINESS, and all that went with it: loathsome, nauseous, repulsion and sickening.

  The reason was all too apparent. Apart from Pommes Frites, those taking part in the tasting were of a vastly different calibre to the ones in his dream.

  A more motley collection of cross-bred canines of doubtful parentage would have been hard to picture. Where they had all come from was anybody’s guess. Straining and slobbering at their leashes, most looked as though they were more used to feeding out of dustbins rather than the Limoges china bowls provided by Le Guide’s catering staff.

  Each and every one appeared more than ready to wolf down anything that was laid before it without so much as a second thought, let alone a preliminary sniff.

  Monsieur Leclercq and his lawyers had certainly gone to town in preparing the ground to their best advantage.

  Peace and quiet was in short supply, and the small but elite gathering of adjudicators seated on the sidelines looked as though they couldn’t wait for the whole thing to be over.

  He recognised several well-known names from the world of haute cuisine; among them Jay Corby, rotund food correspondent for a prominent American journal, who stood out from among a small group of well-known restaurant owners and their chefs, specially co-opted for the occasion.

  Seated alongside them, although slightly apart, was a well-known judge; notorious for her short way with anyone who tested her patience, whether they were on the right side of the law or not.