Dial M for Merde (29 page)

We went through a double door into a cool, chequer-tiled zone of the house. First there was a square serving room with a long wooden table and, against one wall, a chunky metal safe.

‘For the silver,' Bonne Maman told us. ‘We won't be using it for Valéry's wedding. Except at the President's table, of course.'

There was also a large panel of bells, maybe twenty of them, each labelled with the name of a room. Grand salon, petit salon, salle à manger, several chambres – there were even bells for the bathrooms.

The kitchen was dominated by an immense fireplace, maybe ten feet wide. It was basically a giant rôtisserie under a chimney. There was also a central range with at least ten cooking rings. In its heyday, the kitchen could have served up a dozen different types of porridge to the family every morning.

Off the kitchen was a door with an ancient keyhole big enough to get two fingers in.

‘The wine cellar,' Bonne Maman said. ‘Only I have the key.'

‘Can we get directly from the kitchen into the, uh, park?' I asked, and was relieved to find that I'd actually used the right word for once.

‘Yes, come.' Bonne Maman led us through a glass-paned door, and we emerged at the back of the house, in a small kitchen garden. There was a path around to the grounds at the side, where I intended to put the barbecue. It would be relatively easy to transport food to and fro during the reception.

‘And that is the chapel.' Bonne Maman was pointing beyond the kitchen garden to a cuboid building with a small cross at the centre of its pyramid roof. ‘That is where Monsieur le Président will perform the ceremony. The civil ceremony, that is, which will be followed by the religious ceremony. We are lucky,' she added. ‘Until recently, we Catholics had to go to a town hall first, then to a church. These days, God still comes in second place behind a bureaucrat, but fortunately the rules have eased about where one can hold the civil ceremony,
so we no longer have to go to some administrative office.'

‘You will all be in there?' I asked. The chapel was tiny, no bigger than a bandstand. Knowing Elodie, there would hardly be room for her dress.

‘Yes, the President, the curé and the immediate family.' The old girl seemed to be delighted at the way the architecture of her house was going to impose the required elitism on proceedings.

I was pleased, too. No one was going to pop the President during the wedding vows. Unless the priest had agreed to do the job. I'd have to remind Léanne to frisk his cassock.

‘Excellent,' I said. I thanked Bonne Maman, and told her we would leave her in peace for now.

‘Oh, would it be possible to take a short walk around the park?' M asked. ‘It is so beautiful.'

Bonne Maman smiled at her, clearly appreciating M's perfect French, and – I thought – assessing her suitability as a potential source of new gene material for the family. There were probably dozens of horny young male Bonnepoires who would love a blonde wife like her.

‘No, no,' I told M in French. ‘You must come with me. I need your help.' I took her arm and escorted her gently but firmly from the scene of her future crime.

‘What was that about?' she demanded as we got in the car. She was looking suspicious again.

‘Let's quit while we're ahead. We've got to keep in the old bitch's good books,' I said, pretty convincingly. ‘Besides, I really would like you to come along. I want to go and taste some oils. I mean olive oil, of course, not one of those perfumed oils you're so fond of.'

She pretended not to know what I was talking about.

When we got back to the chateau, Benoit and Gilles the chef were being given a hard time by the cowboy, the
gardian
, whose name, we found out, was Monsieur Yena. No one had told him to expect two strange men bearing crates of figs, and he was trying to hold them at bay with a long pole that ended in a pointy, crescent-shaped metal tip.

I sidetracked him by asking what he thought the weather was going to be like on Saturday, a question that had him almost bursting out of his bull-motif shirt with self-importance. He launched into a long speech about the way the bull was facing, and how far from the river the egrets and herons were hunting frogs, and concluded that the weather would be sunny and ‘tranquil', adding that his favourite TV weather girl agreed.

All of which gave Benoit and Gilles ample time to colonize the kitchen with their fruit and equipment.

Monsieur Yena and I unloaded the olive oil, and I gave his wife a couple of bottles as compensation for usurping her in the kitchen.

When I came out again, I saw that M was making use of her free time to inspect all the main house's exits. I even thought I caught sight of her filming something with her phone. A trickle of sweat chilled my spine.

I interrupted her research by asking her to check out the large green van that was heading slowly towards us down the drive. She went and met the driver and pointed him towards me. It turned out to be the champagne-maker. He'd driven all the way down with my order. Not very carbon-neutral, but it was worth it to see the smile on the guy's face.

I realized, of course, that he hadn't come just to meet his satisfied English customer. As he said hello, his eyes were flicking around for signs of presidential presence. And he
told me that he'd been interviewed by a man at the gate, who said he'd come to take photos of all the wedding guests and suppliers as they arrived. The guy had asked him if he knew when the President was arriving.

Oh merde, I thought. The photographer hadn't been there – or hadn't shown himself – when M and I came in. He must have been hiding. He might not be a photographer at all. I asked M to show the champagne guy to the wine cellar, and snuck off to call Léanne.

She wasn't in a good mood.

‘You have
told
everyone that the President is coming?' she snapped.

‘If I hadn't, most of the suppliers would have told me to get lost. They would have said it was too short notice. Do you know who the guy is on the gate?'

‘Yes,' she said, ‘a photographer from the local newspaper. Others will come soon. Probably TV. In a way it is not bad, because now we can put visible police there. Everyone will think it is normal security. But you must not discuss the President's visit with anyone else,
please
, Pol. We must not give M or her associates the idea that there will be too many police around the chateau. They must not be afraid to come.'

I agreed and apologized, but I was thinking the opposite. Wouldn't it be great if the place was so overrun with guests, media and security that the killer called the job off? Elodie and Valéry could simply get married, have a dance and a meal with their family and friends, and not spend their wedding night being interviewed by police and forced to watch security footage of the President getting his head blown off.

I wondered how Elodie would feel if she knew that her only chance of marrying Valéry on Saturday and pocketing
his inheritance was by exposing the President to possible assassination.

Actually, I could guess her answer.

Let him get shot, she would have said, as long as he marries us first.

1

I
T WAS
F
RIDAY
, the day before the wedding. For the past twenty-four hours, family members had been turning up at the chateau in vast numbers. I quickly stopped saying ‘Did we meet in Saint Tropez?' because except for Valéry's closest uncles and aunts, I had no idea who was who.

As soon as Moo-Moo arrived, she attached herself to Bonne Maman, and the two of them toured the grounds dishing out kisses and head-pats to family, and showing the deliverers of furniture and food who was boss.

Dadou, meanwhile, dressed up in gardian gear and went off riding, his too-clean trousers bouncing up and down on his shiny saddle as he and Monsieur Yena disappeared into the marshes.

That was where M had disappeared, too. After two days of trying to keep her in my sights, I'd had to give up and concentrate on getting things organized. In any case, the only people she was likely to be exchanging furtive glances
with now were Bonnepoires, and none of them were going to whack the man who was about to bestow the ultimate honour upon their family.

Elodie arrived, with a semi-coherent Valéry lolling in his own passenger seat. They'd stopped for a night at the chateau where he had originally planned to hold the wedding, and Valéry had apparently spent the whole evening alternately feeding himself with uppers and downers, until his brain was as scrambled as if it had been bouncing up and down a lift shaft.

I couldn't let Bonne Maman see him like that. I had to get him either cleaned up or out of sight. Looking at the fixed smile on his face – like a baby that's just realized it can fart – the second option seemed easier.

Luckily, the lovely Sixtine had appointed herself my personal assistant, so I gave her and Valéry the task of fetching a few sacks of the family's famous Camargue rice from a nearby farm. Valéry would probably use one of the sacks as a pillow, or try to buy drugs from it, but at least Bonne Maman wouldn't see him screwing up.

‘What shall I fetch them in?' Sixtine asked. ‘The Mercedes is too small.'

I laughed and swept an arm around our immediate surroundings. There were enough Renault Espaces parked there to supply a refugee camp.

The drivers and passengers of all these family cars were obviously used to keeping themselves amused. An army of kids was rampaging about, falling in drainage ditches, trying to pull the bull's tail, tumbling out of trees. None of the adults seemed to mind much – they had kids to spare.

Meanwhile, one of the uncles I didn't know, who looked like a mildly disturbing mix of Valéry and Bonne Maman, had rounded up the adults and older teens for a game of
Bonnepoire Trivial Pursuit. They were sitting on the grass in front of the main house, gathered round their question master like disciples at a sect meeting, and as I helped Gilles and Benoit to set up the barbecue, I caught snatches of the game.

‘Who sat on Bonne Maman's hat at Ludivine's fiftieth birthday party?' he asked, to howls of nostalgic laughter. ‘Where did little Paul-Emmanuel use to hide his food when he didn't want to finish his dinner?'

They were a world unto themselves. They'd probably written a Bonnepoire Book of World Records and held Bonnepoire Olympic Games.

I just hoped for their sakes that the next round of Bonnepoire Trivial Pursuit wouldn't start with ‘Who was hit in the crossfire when the President got shot?'

One of Valéry's aunts showed particular bravery, I thought, by agreeing to go and fetch Jake from the airport. Deciding who to ask had been a tough call, and I had finally opted for the nun, Eve-Marie. I couldn't send a male, because Jake would only have started asking him about shaggable sisters and nieces, or enquired whether the guy had ever slept with a Bulgarian. I figured that Eve-Marie would be safe from his advances. She was way too old, even for his undiscerning libido, and wore clothes that had the magical effect of convincing the onlooker that sex didn't exist.

So I was surprised when she arrived back at the chateau and almost fell from the car, pale with shock.

Jake jumped out after her, looking deliriously happy.

‘Success immediate!' he proclaimed, grabbing me in an American hug.

‘You haven't started shagging different religious orders?' I asked, horrified.

‘Uh? No, man. Are you malade? She will contribute to my fon.'

‘She's giving money to your cause?'

‘Oui. I am reciting to her some of our Cajun posy, and she says, “Stop, enough, I will contribute.” And every time I recite another posy, she offers more. Formidable, huh?'

‘Yes, formidable,' I agreed, watching the poor woman stagger off for a lie-down.

‘Now where is the Prayzidon?' he asked.

‘Well he's not going to turn up early to help lay the tables, Jake.' I told him that he would have to wait until the next day for the chance to lobby the head of state. ‘You're looking, er, good,' I said. My hesitation was caused by the fact that his natural tendency towards slobbishness had been enhanced somewhat by a year living in a Louisiana swamp. His matted blond hair was long and style-free, his clothes were no doubt what the hippest shrimp fishermen were all wearing this season. He needed tidying up fast if he was going to be allowed within nibbling distance of the wedding buffet.

‘Good flight?' I asked, wondering where I could get him some clothes that wouldn't terrify a French audience.

‘Oh, oui, man. I got a freebie to Paree with Iran Air. I had to go via Teheran, but so what?'

‘Iran Air? How come?' I asked, fearing the reply.

‘Oh, I once boned this Iranian hôtesse de l'air. So I appelled her last week and she said, “Sure, I can give you a ticket.” Oh man, she was formidable. She had, like, all this caviar, and we—'

It was too much. ‘Please, Jake, stop. I've had enough of fucking caviar these past couple of weeks.'

‘You been fucking with caviar? Hey, that's exactement what we did. I inserted it in—'

Five minutes later, I tottered off in search of Eve-Marie the nun. Maybe the sight of her clothes would hypnotize me into forgetting the gruesome details of Jake's sex life.

 

My own sex life hit a new low on the night before the wedding.

M kissed and caressed me, talked dirty, and even got her dolphin in on the act, but I was too tired and tense to perform.

‘Sorry,' I apologized, putting my arm around her as she lay down, frustrated, beside me. I really was sorry, too, not just for making such an anti-climax of what was no doubt our last night together, but also because of the trap I was leading her into.

I did my best to recall the various deceptions and humiliations she'd put me through, directly and indirectly – the endless lies about sturgeon, getting me roughed up by the police on Bendor, using me so that we'd look like a normal holidaying couple travelling along the coast. She'd been playing with me. She deserved what she was going to get. It was payback time.

But you can't – or
I
can't – feel aggressive towards someone you're in bed with, and who you feel comfortable putting your arm around.

Over the past few days, she had been much more silent than usual, and when she hadn't been snooping around the chateau, she'd often sat alone in the shade of a tree, looking around at the chatting Bonnepoires as if she envied them.

She seemed to have a conscience about what she was doing. It was almost as if she was caught in a trap herself. Perhaps she was being blackmailed? Something to do with
her dad, maybe, or her French mum? If only, I thought, we could get it all out in the open and talk.

But we'd gone too far with our deception. And besides, I had Léanne and her leather-jacketed sidekick on my back, threatening me with a long holiday in a French prison if I clicked out of my Mata Hari role.

‘I understand. It's the stress,' M said, forgiving me for under-performing. I was relieved that she'd given up without trying out her lickable oil. After Jake's description of what he'd done with caviar, mixing food and sex had totally lost its appeal.

2

It was Saturday at last, the morning of the wedding.

A whirring flight of flamingos was my wake-up call, after all. I drew the curtains to see a layer of dawn mist hanging over the marshes. It looked as though the pink birds were landing on snow. Outside, the air was as chilly as our silence during the drive to the chateau.

My brain was on overload. Léanne's team still had no leads on the identity or whereabouts of the hitman. But he had to be on his way now. For all I knew, M might even have paid him already. I was almost certain that she didn't have the money with her. She just had her party frock – a dark-blue dress that she took everywhere – and her make-up bag. Which meant that she'd either hidden the money or handed it over during one of her walks across the marshes.

‘You look as nervous as I feel,' I told her. ‘We'll have to cheer up or we'll spoil Elodie's wedding day. We wouldn't want to do that, would we?'

She met my innocent look with inscrutable eyes.

OK, I thought, that was our last chance. Now we've both got to go through with it.

 

At the chateau, the biggest threat to the wedding seemed to be the Bonnepoire kids. Like an infestation of cackling elves, they were attacking the furniture, and using the tables that we'd had so much trouble procuring as tents, climbing frames and capsized boats.

M went upstairs to help Elodie get ready for her big day, which was either the worst case of hypocrisy I'd ever witnessed or just the executioner being kind to the condemned.

I dived into the kitchen in search of Léanne. She had said that she would be coming as a waitress, along with several of her men.

I found her in the serving room, holding a little confab by the silver safe. She was dressed in a short black skirt and tight white shirt, with a tiny apron tied low on her hips. She looked, even to my stressed eyes, very tasty indeed.

With her were the leather-jacketed cop – he snarled a sort of hello – and four other officers in waiter's uniform. There was the lemon-seller – in trousers and white shirt – along with his semi-identical twin from the hotel in Collioure, and two younger guys.

Léanne told them to make room for me to enter their huddle. She made sure no one else was listening, and continued her briefing.

‘No one knows we are cops. Even the presidential security must think we are waiters. OK?'

Her men nodded.

‘If we need to search the house, I stay here, you others go
around the rooms. When a room is clear, you pull the bell. It will show up here.' She pointed to the bell panel on the wall. ‘We will use phones as little as possible. Everyone on earth will be listening in tonight.'

The men nodded again.

‘Pol,' she went on, ‘anything new to tell us about M?'

‘Not much,' I said. ‘I don't know where the money is. Have you seen her meet with someone?'

‘No.' Léanne looked thoughtful. ‘We watched her go for walks alone, once from the chateau to your hotel – five kilometres – and once through the marshes as far as the Rhône. That is all.' I noticed that her soft southern accent had got stronger. She was obviously making an effort to bond with her men.

‘You still don't know who the assassin is?' I said.

‘If we did, he'd be dead,' Leather Jacket snorted.

‘No, he wouldn't,' Léanne corrected him. ‘We need him to talk.'

‘But what I mean,' I said in French, ‘is not his name, but why he is doing it. Why
she
is doing it. Are they the Mafia, political opposition, who?'

‘The English, maybe?' the ex-lemon-seller said, but he was only teasing me.

‘A jealous husband? There must be a few of those,' his twin suggested.

‘Let's hope it's the unions,' Leather Jacket said. ‘Then the killer will go on strike.'

Léanne held up a hand to restore discipline. ‘The reason is not our problem. Our job is to make sure he fails. Now the President will arrive at eight this evening, and perform the ceremony at nine. He will stay for some of your dinner, Pol, so it had better be good.'

‘If a bullet doesn't get him, the English food will, uh?' It
was Leather Jacket, seriously tempting me to barbecue his face for him.

3

The morning flashed past, and the afternoon started to get worryingly old.

The marquee went up, fell down, and went up again.

Monsieur Yena almost got himself arrested when he appeared carrying a drum of petrol and a shotgun. The first, he explained, was to help light the barbecue – the wood he'd provided was a bit damp. And the second was to go and shoot some rabbits. He wasn't too keen on fish, and wanted to grill himself some meat on the side.

I saw Jake and Dadou together quite a lot, and remembered that Elodie had told her future father-in-law that Jake was gay. And Jake knew that Dadou was the man to talk to at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Their game of cat-and-mouse evolved during the day – first with Jake doing the pursuing, then Dadou, and finally Jake again, with Dadou looking as if he was being hunted by a crocodile. I guessed that Jake had decided to recite some of his swamp verse.

Around four, Jean-Marie called to tell me that the President wouldn't be coming, then stopped me in mid-leap of relief by chuckling and saying it was a joke. Jean-Marie was at Orly airport, with the presidential party no less, and they were expecting the man himself any minute.

Gilles and Benoit were mid-way through their tower of caramelized figs, both of them sweating in the hot kitchen, their fingers glued together with toffee, having to puff away
the flies and children hovering around their bubbling cauldron. The hired cooking staff were gutting fish, chopping vegetables, splashing olive oil around like water.

I was having a short tea-time breather in the cool shade of the kitchen garden when Bonne Maman and Moo-Moo swanned up. The old lady put on an affronted scowl and Moo-Moo declared that they'd made a ‘grave error' allowing me to do the catering.