A Twist of Orchids (27 page)

He was hunkering down in a clearing to have a better look at a splendid specimen of a yellow Cowslip, one of his favorite spring flowers, when he was alerted by a sharp crackle of movement. He looked up. It was not his dog. Bismuth was nosing about at the far end of the clearing. Slowly he turned his head. The telltale noise had come from a tangle of bushes behind him and off to his right. Nor was it a bird, a lizard, or any of the numerous small animals that inhabited a wood. This was something big. He waited. The innocent landscape wrapped him in its quiet embrace. Abruptly he rose, waving his arms and calling loudly for Bismuth. The dog came running. He knew then that it was not a deer, which would have bounded away by now.

He took his time, digging his camera out of his backpack, fiddling with the settings, clicking off a few shots of the Cowslip, and stowing his camera again. Then he slung his backpack casually over one shoulder and walked out of the clearing and into the trees. Quickly and quietly he circled around to approach from behind the spot he had identified. Parting a screen of leaves, he nearly ran head-on into Géraud.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Julian demanded furiously.

“Enjoying nature.” Géraud, clearly amused by the encounter, held his ground.

“You bastard, you’ve been following me!”

“
Bien sur
,” the squat man agreed. “I’ve been tailing you ever since you left your house this morning, and I must say you’re very inattentive. You never even saw me. You didn’t think I’d fall for that cock-and-bull story about Cercles, did you?” He looked about him. “Well, well, well. Aurillac Ridge. I should have guessed.”

“That woman hired you, didn’t she?” was all Julian could manage to choke out.

“Ah. I see I have a leak close to home. Yes, Heidi and I are conjoined in a kind of loose, mutually beneficial partnership. She has an amazing collection of Slipper orchids, by the way, including a
Paphiopedilum sanderianum
for me. But it’s contingent on my finding a certain flower. A fair trade, don’t you think?”

“
Pirate!
”

“No good calling names,
mon vieux.
Bad manners. Anyway, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I’m sure you would have done the same thing in my place. So why not be a good fellow and let a serious orchid hunter get on with the job for a change? You’re never going to find it on your own, you know. I promise to credit you. In a footnote.”

Julian nearly punched him.

Julian still had Adelheid’s card in his wallet. She lived not far away outside a place called Queyssac. He loaded Bismuth in his van, checked his map, and drove there at reckless speed. His way led past a progression of vineyards, forests, and newly seeded fields of maize. There was little traffic about. He noticed, but was too angry to pay much attention to, a dark car that swung onto the main road behind him just as he branched off in the direction of Queyssac. He rattled through the village in a cloud of dust. A few kilometers farther on he saw a signpost with the word
Besser
on it, directing him onto a tree-lined lane that led up a hill. The car ollowing him pulled onto the verge of the main road and stopped.

Her property was at the top of the lane, surrounded by a high stone wall. There was a wrought-iron gate with an intercom. Hepressed the button. A female voice with a strong local accent squawked at him. He identified himself and said he was here to see Madame Besser.

“She’s busy,” said the voice. “I’ll ask if she’s seeing visitors.”

He waited, simmering dangerously.

Eventually the voice screeched at him, “
Ça va.
Drive in. She’ll meet you.” The gate swung slowly inward. He drove through and parked beside a beige Renault Kangoo. As he climbed out of his van, he spotted Adleheid coming toward him around the side of the house. She wore mud-stained overalls, Wellington boots, and a floppy hat.

“I want a word with you,” Julian barked, striding up to her.

“Ah. You have changed your mind?”

“I haven’t, but you are going to change yours.”

“Mmm-um?” Her tone was disarmingly mild, but her little blue eyes narrowed, and her scarlet mouth stretched upward in a not altogether pleasant smile.

“You, Madame Besser, are going decide you don’t want
Cypripedium incognitum
after all. You are going to call Géraud Laval off. You are going to restrict your interests to your phyto-chemistry and your already considerable collection and leave my orchid alone.”

“But,” she said reasonably, “it is not your orchid. You said you are not so sure even that it exists.”

“It doesn’t exist for you,” Julian snapped. He stopped, his attention captured by the impressive greenhouse that extended off the back of her house. Through the glass walls, he could see that it was crammed with orchids. It left him momentarily speechless.

“Impressive, no?” she asked, reading him aright. “Would you like to see inside? I can show you
Paphiopedilum besseri
, one of my most famous hybrids.”

He pulled himself up. “I haven’t come for that.”

“No? Unfortunately, you are too early for the
Cypripediums.
” She indicated ranks of outdoor beds in a park-like setting at the side of her property. “I have them here, from China, North America, Japan, all in specially designed habitats. My collection”—Adelheid waved an encompassing hand—“is extensive. But,” she added significantly, “not complete.”

He bristled. “And to round it off, you want
Cypripedium incognitum.
”

“Exactly. It is fitting, don’t you think?”

“Anything but,” he retorted. “
Cypripedium incognitum
may be down to one representative. It needs protection in situ. It doesn’t need you, or anyone else, digging it up.”

“Who said I will dig it up?” she asked mildly. “Perhaps all I wish to do is gather seeds from it and germinate them. That would be far better, would it not?”

“It would. But that villain you’ve hired to find it won’t do that. He’ll take the seeds
and
the plant itself to make sure he has a monopoly.” In fact, Julian decided, that was probably what Adelheid would do, too. She, like Géraud, would want sole rights.

“Mmm-um. You know, you should really reconsider my offer. It is still open. And already I have told you I will pay very well whoever brings me
Cypripedium incognitum.
”

“Oh, that’s your game, is it? You want to play Géraud and me off against one another. I suppose this is your idea of fun?”

“But isn’t it sensible? Why have only one person looking for a thing when you can have two? And since you are looking for it anyway, why not get paid to do it? Look, tomorrow I go on a little trip. I will be away some days. You have time to think it over.”

“Off to plunder more orchids?”

She was unperturbed. “Not at all. Everything I do according to regulations. In fact, I am going to Turkey for a conference where we will consider the plight of Anatolian orchids, ground up for the Turkish drink and ice cream industries.”

He stared at her in surprise. “Salep?” The thought that she, too, might be a proponent of the ban on salep stunned him.

“Ah. You know it? Salep drink is very popular, and ice cream in Turkey is not ice cream without salep. Personally, I find it makes too thick and ropy the texture, but the Turks have always made their ice cream with it, and they love it. So I will listen to them talk about starch substitutes and better ways of harvesting orchids and so on. Then I will make a little field trip, and I will bring back many dozens of plants—”

“You’re digging them up?” Julian inquired hostilely.

“
Nein.
A research colleague supplies them. Don’t worry. It is in the name of science, and they will have the best of care. I have my own specially adapted vehicle for transporting the darlings.”

He stared at her, incredulous. “You’re driving all the way to Turkey?”

She gave him a look that told him he was being silly and went on: “This colleague asks me to run experimental trials on root damage recovery in
Ophrys
and
Orchis
genera. Maybe you know the country people in Turkey harvest orchids for salep by taking the fattest root of each plant they dig up? If the orchid is properly handled, it can regenerate.”

Julian was momentarily without reply. Adelheid Besser, champion of sustainability? It was a side to her he had not suspected and did not quite believe.

“I return on May 6. Give me your answer then. Unless, of course, you want to accept now.” She added with playful malice, “Or perhaps you are afraid of being beaten at your own game? Géraud is sure he will find the orchid first, you know.”

“Géraud?” Julian scoffed. “That robber couldn’t find his own two feet on a bright day. But I told you already. I’m not interested. And if I were you, I wouldn’t put my faith in Géraud Laval. You can’t trust him, you know. He’s absolutely unscrupulous.”

“And you?” She regarded him blandly. “He says you are a fraud. So tell me, Monsieur Wood, who should I choose between you, the robber or the charlatan?”

It was the second time that day that Julian nearly hit someone. He turned on his heel and stomped away. When he reached his van, he glowered at the Kangoo parked beside it. He could see that the cargo area inside was fitted out with shelves and what looked like growth lights. Undoubtedly, it was also equipped with some wizard system of climatization as well. Adelheid’s sodding specially adapted vehicle.

By the time he had started up his engine and was roaring out the gate, his anger had dissipated and he was overcome with a feeling of sheer desperation. Against those two, his orchid was in real jeopardy. He saw them bearing down on it with shovel and spade and cursed that the only way he could see to prevent this awful outcome was to kill both of them, or at least break Géraud’s legs.

Julian was still seriously plotting some degree of incapacitation to the man when he turned onto the main road. A black Mercedes was parked ahead of him on the verge. He slowed, glancing at the driver as he went past. It gave him an unpleasant shock to realize that the remarkable face that stared back at him belonged to none other than Ton-and-a-Half ’s hit man Serge.

The recognition triggered a vague memory of a dark vehicle falling in behind him at some point on his way to Adelheid’s house. With a prickling of fear, Julian stamped on the accelerator, causing the van to lunge clumsily forward. A few minutes later, after he had passed through Queyssac, and with nothing but a clear stretch of road behind him, he was puzzled to conclude that Serge was not following him after all. But he still did not feel entirely safe.

“Me?” Donny put two large fingers to his chest and looked surprised.

“Just give me a straight answer,” said Mara.

She had found Donny home alone, Daisy having left for New York a few days earlier. The big man waved her toward the sofa and sat down on it himself. The leather seat sighed audibly as it received his weight.

“Look, what’s this all about? You want a drink?”

“No thanks. It’s about this”—Mara waved a brochure at him—“and the fact that it’s happening in my face. Are you Montfort-Izawa? Are you behind this golf course?”

The look of surprise now had a bland quality to it. She knew that she had guessed correctly, and that he was about to lie.

“Me?” he said again. He did not even glance at the brochure. “Montfort-Izawa? You gotta be kidding. Mara, I’m small fry. M-I’s a big outfit. It’s got French and Japanese backing up the yingyang. And, don’t tell anyone I said so”—he leaned forward and lowered his voice, even though there was no one else to hear—“maybe some serious Hong Kong money as well.”

“For someone who’s not involved, you know a lot about it,” Mara accused. Away from Daisy, he had lost his anxious, conciliatory air. He was more himself, more relaxed, certainly sneakier, she thought.

“We-ell”—he writhed a little, and the leather squeaked—“maybe I had something to do with getting them interested in
the idea. I mean, I used to pro golf. I know the game, I know the courses, I know the market. So maybe I give them a piece of advice every now and then. Technical stuff. Most people don’t know squat about green layout. But that’s as far as I go.”

“In other words, you’re designing the course for them.”

“Did I say that? Call me a consultant. A kind of golf course architect. That’s your field, isn’t it, architecture? Look, it was bound to happen sooner or later. They’re golf crazy, those Japanese. Do you know the minute they break ground here, there’ll be planeloads of Tokyo corporate execs ready to fly out here for a week of golf? It’s cheaper than trying to join a club in Japan. Even if you can ante up for the membership, you still can’t get green time. And it’s not just them. You’ve got the Germans and the Brits, to say nothing of Americans. The Dordogne is crying out for a top-notch, championship-standard course.”

“Top-notch how? Julian says there’s no way you can build eighteen holes on so little land. He says the configuration of it is all wrong.”

Donny laughed and threw his hands up. “I can tell neither one of you is a golfer. Mara, it’s amazing what you can do with smart design. A little cut and fill here, the use of double fairways like at St. Andrews—”

“You’re actually planning to build the entire course on 40 hectares?”

“We-ell. Look, take the case of Japan. Nobody’s shorter on space than the Japanese. So what do they do? They build vertical. They have escalators taking you up and down to different levels. You gotta hand it to them. Smart.” He tapped his forehead.

“Listen.” He put his hands on his knees. “I can see you’re upset about this. And jeez, the last thing I’d want to do is lose a friend—”

Hah!
Mara almost interjected aloud.

“But let me tell you, it’ll do wonders for the value of your property. How many folks can say they overlook the eighteenth hole?”

“I don’t want to overlook the damned eighteenth hole,” Mara cried out angrily.

“Well, think of the bigger picture. A scheme like this’ll pump up the regional economy. Provide jobs, generate income. It’s supply meeting demand, know what I mean? I should tell you, the project has a lot of local backing. A whole bunch of people like the idea. You gotta go as the world turns, Mara. You can’t stop progress.”