Black Diamond
Page 4
Suddenly the door to the kitchen opened and the face of a small and very serious Asian girl peeked out. Pons turned and said something loud and firmly in what Bruno assumed was Chinese, and a tall Chinese man in a chef’s hat appeared behind the girl and pulled her back.
“Excuse me. One of the nieces of Minxin, my chef,” Pons explained. “You know how curious kids are.”
“In the meantime, Monsieur Pons, I’m getting hungry,” said the baron.
“Of course. But I do want to apologize for the way things got so out of hand at the sawmill,” Pons said. “Now let me show you to your table. And please call me Bill. When I hear ‘Monsieur Pons’ I look around for my father. Not a happy relationship, as you know.”
He smiled to take any reproof from his words and led them to a table by one of the large windows, screened by thick red drapes. He held a chair for Pamela, who somehow made the little black dress she was wearing look festive rather than formal, a wide red suede belt emphasizing her waist and the curve of her hips. Bill pointed to the ice bucket where a bottle of Bollinger awaited their arrival between two tall beeswax candles.
“With my compliments.” He ripped off the foil to open the bottle. “A small thank-you.” Bruno watched approvingly as Pons twisted the cork, not the bottle, and gave a gentle tap to the bottle’s base to reduce the foam. He carefully filled their glasses, and a young waitress appeared with four leather-bound menus and a wine list.
“I hope you know that this is an organic restaurant, and as much of the food as possible is grown locally,” Bill went on. “We want to offer a full wine list so we are not so strict there, but the bio wines are all marked. If you have any questions, just ask for me, and bon appétit.”
“The champagne is a pleasant gesture,” said Pamela, smiling, once their host had gone. She raised her glass and called for a toast to Bill’s generosity. Bruno nodded and sipped with the rest of them, despite the sense of discomfort he felt at accepting a gift for doing no more than his job. He had seen too many policemen taking free meals and other favors, and he knew that at some point they usually came with a price attached. That may have been the way Bill learned to do business in Asia, but that was not something Bruno wanted to see in St. Denis. Still, he smiled across the table to the baron, and he looked with pleasure at the two handsome women who flanked them, Fabiola’s dark hair piled almost formally high and Pamela’s hair glinting now bronze, now chestnut, in the candlelight.
“This place is grander than I’d expected,” said Fabiola.
“I’m not sure about this foie gras poêlé en étoile d’anis. It sounds like it would ruin a perfectly good foie gras,” grumbled the baron from deep within the menu. “Nor this fresh trout with lemongrass; you won’t be able to taste the fish. Still, the prices aren’t too bad.”
“But you like the way Bruno does his foie with honey and balsamic vinegar,” said Pamela. “This kind of change is just what we need around here. But do you think people in St. Denis will ever forgive Bill for closing his father’s sawmill? You were born here, Baron. What do you think?”
“The people who worked there will never forgive him. But that’s a small minority. Old-fashioned types like me regret its passing. But I do wonder about a son who breaks with his father like that, in such a public way.”
“It was the father who slapped him,” said Fabiola.
“After the son had tried to destroy the father’s business. And we all know how much we need jobs around here. So I’m reserving judgment on our inventive restaurant owner, at least until we’ve eaten his food.” He turned to Bruno. “Did you see Alphonse was dining with Jean Marillon?”
Bruno nodded. Marillon was one of the town’s pharmacists, and expected to be the Socialist Party’s candidate for mayor in the elections in May. He was a competent man but a lackluster candidate who had been beaten twice before by Bruno’s boss, the current mayor. If Marillon stood down and his Socialists forged an electoral pact with Alphonse’s Green Party, Bruno’s mayor could be facing a tight race.
“You think young Pons is going to be the joint candidate?” Bruno asked.
“Not only that. I think he’s going to win,” said the baron, handing a sheet of paper across the table. Bruno found himself reading a printed appeal from Boniface Pons, owner of the old sawmill, to sign a petition to support his independent campaign to be the next mayor as candidate for the St. Denis Alliance for Jobs. “He only needs sixty signatures on that petition to get on the ballot, and he’ll get that from the sawmill employees and their families.”
“ ‘Ban all immigration so long as French workers remain unemployed,’ ” Bruno read aloud.
“So he gets the Front National vote, and a lot of the conservatives who usually vote for the mayor,” the baron said. “If the Reds and Greens put up a decent candidate, they could win. And I think they might just have one in the guy who bought us this bottle of champagne.”
“You think our mayor could lose?” Bruno asked. With young Pons heading that Red-Green list and his father running on the right, a lot of media attention could be guaranteed, Bruno thought. That would mean more work for him, trying to keep St. Denis calm during a heated campaign with TV cameras and reporters hunting for Oedipal drama as father faced son on the hustings. If the mayor lost, it might well be his final task as the chief of police of St. Denis.
“Voters get tired of the same old face. And there’s a recession. And young Pons is a fresh new political face with some new ideas. Yes, I think our old friend could lose.”
Bruno handed back the paper and looked across to the table where Alphonse and Marillon were raising a glass to each other. They could have been sealing a pact. The baron followed his gaze.
“Would anybody mind if we treat this like a Chinese restaurant and share one another’s dishes?” asked Pamela. Startled, Bruno turned his attention back to the table.
“Sure, good idea,” said Fabiola as Bill approached the table to take their orders.
“Tell me about this Pekin-Périgord duck on the menu,” the baron said.
“It’s like the usual Pekin duck, wrapped in a crepe with strips of cucumber and spring onions,” Bill explained. “But instead of hoisin sauce we use a reduction of vin de noix, and the ducks are from here, but we wind-dry them in the Chinese way. My chef, Minxin, says he can’t wait to try it back in Hong Kong.” He poured the remainder of the champagne.
“I’m pleased you’re having the risotto. It’s an attempt to do with our truffles here what they do in Piedmont with white truffles,” Bill went on, when Fabiola told him her choice. “And there’s an organic sauvignon blanc from a small vineyard near Thénac that goes wonderfully well with it, and with the duck.”
The baron chose the duck and the white wine and as usual asked for a carafe of tap water. The price that restaurants charged for mineral water was one of his standard grumbles. His dinner companions were used to his ways. The four of them had eaten and played tennis together often enough to be comfortable in one another’s company. Only when they were alone did the baron tease Bruno about his relationship with Pamela, saying how much more suited he was to her than Isabelle, the dashing police inspector from Paris with whom he’d enjoyed a brief but passionate affair that summer. When you get to my age, the baron had said, you’ll know that it’s better to be suited to a woman than to be besotted with her.
Looking across the table at Pamela’s perfect complexion and lively eyes, and feeling the soft pressure of her foot resting on his beneath the table, Bruno knew that he was more than a little besotted with her, possibly because their affair had begun just a few weeks ago. And Bruno was still trying to adapt to the rhythms that Pamela imposed. He was accustomed to a blaze of passion, spending each night with a new lover and plunging into the relationship as if he were diving headlong into a river. As loving as she might be when they were together, that was not Pamela’s way. She made it clear when he was welcome in her bed and when he was not. When she wanted a weekend to herself she told him s
o with firm affection, and she never spoke of their future. It was a very controlled affair, and she insisted on their living separate lives. She said it was because she did not want to become a subject of St. Denis gossip, which just showed how little she understood the way a small town comes to know things by a kind of osmosis. She’d talked of her failed marriage back in England and told him she was wary of living with a man. She remained elusive and something of a mystery to him, and Bruno was sufficiently honest with himself to admit that was part of her attraction.
They all shared the baron’s duck, and then Pamela took command of the table, passing around spoonfuls of her gado-gado salad, described on the menu as an Indonesian dish of bean sprouts with a peanut sauce. She quartered her trout to serve it around the table, and even the baron nodded approvingly at the lemongrass sauce. The wine was pronounced perfect, and all the dishes were empty by the time the young waitress returned with the Pruneaux d’Agen soaked in brandy.
“I think I’ll become a regular here, even though they didn’t get the risotto quite right,” said Fabiola. Murmurs of satisfied approval around the table made it clear she spoke for them all. The baron was nodding happily as he signaled for the bill. But before it came, Pons ambled over, bringing a tray with four small pottery cups and a stone bottle so cold that beads of moisture sparkled and ran down the sides.
“This is something special I’d like you to try,” he said. “We offer it to all our guests on their first visit. It’s called mijiu. It’s a Chinese rice wine that’s usually drunk warm. But I find it makes a fine digestif served very cold.”
“How long were you in China?” Pamela asked. “And why don’t you come and join us? Most of your other guests have gone.” She waved a hand at the almost empty restaurant.
“I’d like that,” Bill said, pulling up a chair between Pamela and the baron. “I lived in Hong Kong and Macao for nearly ten years, but with lots of trips to the mainland. I was in Shanghai for nearly a year, Beijing for a few months. And I spent time in Singapore and Bangkok. I loved Asia. Still do, but suddenly I started to feel a little homesick. Believe it or not, I hoped for a reconciliation with my father.”
“But you weren’t prepared to compromise on the sawmill,” said the baron, “despite the family tie.”
“No. But I offered to help pay for a new chimney scrubber.”
“The latest problem was less the pollution than the location,” said Bruno. “It was too close to that housing block.”
“It would have meant demolishing one building,” said Pons, with a bitter laugh. “Just a small storage shed, and donating about a hundred square meters to the commune. Then the sawmill would’ve been outside the excluded area. I offered to pay for the land and for a replacement storage building, but my father saw it as a matter of principle. Or perhaps he saw it as good business—he’s getting a generous grant to build the new sawmill over in St. Félix and a tax write-off for the old place. Anyway, he made it pretty clear that he wanted neither my help nor my company. But that’s enough about my dysfunctional family. Thanks again, especially to you, Monsieur le Chef de Police. I’d heard all about you from our mutual friend Alphonse, and I think it was mainly thanks to you that it didn’t turn out worse than it was.”
“If violence breaks out, even one brief incident, it means I’ve failed,” said Bruno, feeling uncomfortable. “I can’t count that as one of my better days.”
“Let’s try this Chinese wine,” Pamela said into the sudden silence.
Bill poured. “Tell me what you think.”
Bruno sipped and made polite noises, but it wasn’t to his taste at all. The baron put his cup down after a sip and muttered about having to drive and beware of the gendarmes. Fabiola, who made a point of putting honesty first, said it was not her idea of a digestif.
“It’s interesting, different from what I expected,” said Pamela. “What did you do in Asia? Did you get a job or teach French or start a business or what?”
“All of those,” he said, with a charming smile that even his bruises could not dilute. “At different times, of course. I was a cognac salesman in Shanghai, ran a wineshop in Vientiane, taught French in Bangkok and even worked as a croupier in a Macao casino. But my primary business was to have a small share in what became a very successful restaurant in Macao and then Hong Kong. That’s where I met my chef, Minxin Hu. He’s become a good friend. Let me introduce him.” He rose. “Anyone want coffee?”
“I have to work tomorrow, so I don’t want to be too late,” said Fabiola. “Let’s say hello to your Chinese partner as we get our coats.”
Bill headed for the kitchen and quickly reappeared with the tall and solemn-looking Chinese man. The clothes were impeccable, gleaming white and freshly pressed, as if he had just put them on. Bruno, who had seen Chinese cooks drenched in sweat after working close to their steaming woks, was surprised. “Thank you for a memorable meal,” said Bruno, rising to shake Minxin’s hand. The man gave a tight-lipped smile and a short bow.
“Merci, merci—my French very bad,” the chef said, and shook hands all around as Bruno asked Pons once more for the bill.
“You are my guests tonight,” he said airily.
“No, it’s kind of you, but we can’t accept that,” Bruno said firmly. “Policemen can’t accept free meals. We’d like to pay.”
Bill studied Bruno for a moment, his bruised face impassive. Then he nodded and turned aside to the small reception table and scribbled out a bill. It said simply “4 fusion menus at 20 euros, 1 bottle wine 20 euros. Total 100 euros.”
“By the way, Minxin’s nieces need to be registered for school,” said Bruno, handing over two fifty-euro notes. He turned to help Pamela on with her coat. The baron helped Fabiola, and the two men voiced a cheerful good night as they steered the two women into the darkness, ignoring their protests about paying their share of the bill.
“We’d have been there all night if we’d stopped to hand over four credit cards,” Bruno explained. “You can all pay me back later.”
“It’s just as well, Bruno. I really do have to be at work early tomorrow,” said Fabiola, clambering into the back of Pamela’s car. “Good night, Baron. It was a wonderful meal.”
Pamela drove off in silence, Bruno beside her. He realized that it was one of those deafening silences that only women knew how to manufacture, a silence that any mere male broke at his peril. He looked glumly at the road ahead, knowing that he needed to think about his own future if the mayor lost the election. Despite his political neutrality, Bruno was the mayor’s appointee and was widely known as one of the mayor’s right-hand men. A new mayor would be wary, even suspicious, and might well want to appoint his own nominee to the post. Not that Bruno could be fired; French employment law didn’t work that way. But he could be forced to transfer elsewhere in the département or the region, or even to a much larger municipal police force in a big town. He’d hate that. And with his rank, Bruno would probably be catapulted into a senior post ahead of some bright young man who was expecting promotion. He’d have an enemy from the start. Worst of all, he’d probably have to move, sell his house and find somewhere else to live that would take his dog. He’d have to give away his chickens and his ducks and geese, leave his vegetable garden and his truffles to a new buyer. He would have to make new friends, build new relationships, carve out a new life. And where would that leave him and Pamela?
Fabiola interrupted his thoughts. “That violence at the sawmill wasn’t your fault, Bruno. And you stopped it pretty fast. Don’t brood about it. And don’t worry about Bill. That pretty face of his looks a lot worse than it is.”
“I wouldn’t call him pretty,” said Pamela. “Handsome certainly, but there’s too much character there to call him pretty. He’s had an interesting life. I wonder if one of those windmill things would work for me.”
“You can get grants for that these days,” said Bruno. “And for adding insulation to your roof. We’ve got some pamphlets about it at the mairie.”
When they reached Pamela’s place, Fabiola pecked them both on the cheek, said a quick good night and darted into her own house.
“Perhaps I’d better walk back to town,” Bruno said.
“Don’t be silly. It’s far too cold,” Pamela said, going through her kitchen door and shedding her coat. “Help yourself if you want coffee or anything. You know where it all is.” She served herself a glass of water from the tap, leaned against the sink and turned to face him. He hung up his coat and sat at the kitchen table. “You seemed rather down this evening. Don’t you approve of Bill?”
Bruno shrugged. “I don’t know enough about him to approve or disapprove. But it’s a good restaurant, and I certainly approve of the energy saving. What surprises me is his sudden decision to go in for politics. He’s only been here a few months, and now there’s talk of him running for mayor already.” Bruno wondered how to put into words his discomfort at the threatening pace of change, at the disruption of the calm and ordered way of life in St. Denis that he cherished.
“You mean you spent ten years sinking your roots into St. Denis and this attractive young prodigal son blazes back into town and starts to take over. It sounds as though you’re jealous.”
Bruno looked her in the eye. “I’ve got nothing to be jealous about. If you find him attractive, you’re a free woman. I have no claims on you.” But the moment he said it, Bruno knew that it didn’t reflect quite what he felt. He smiled at her, trying to make a joke of it.
“I take you as you are,” he said. “Whatever the terms.”
“The terms are still under negotiation,” she said, unfolding herself from the sink and coming across to take his face in her hands and kiss him softly on the lips. “Come on, dearest Bruno, and take me to bed.”
4
Didier, the manager of the truffle market, was a short man with a clammy handshake, a potbelly and a bad haircut. Bruno tried to damp down the instinctive dislike he felt even as he turned himself a little sideways to avoid the man’s sour breath. Didier was explaining the various steps required to match a basket of truffles sold in the market hall with an Internet order. Bruno tried to concentrate on the process as he observed Didier for any signs of nervousness. Bruno had assumed even without Hercule’s hints that a successful fraud would require somebody on the inside who was familiar with the way the market worked. Didier was his guide to this process but also an obvious suspect. Bruno had expected defensiveness, but that was not the way Didier seemed to be reacting.