Monsieur Pamplemousse on Vacation (5 page)

The response was equally cryptic. ‘Once a
flic
– always a
flic
, eh?’

‘Alors!’
Monsieur Pamplemousse gave a shrug. ‘So the saying goes.’ Having no wish to prolong the conversation, he glanced pointedly at his watch, then held out his hand. He received a firm shake in return.

‘Au revoir.
Take care how you go.’ There was no offer of a lift.

As he made his way slowly down towards the harbour Monsieur Pamplemousse puzzled over the last remark. It could simply have been a question of territories, but it had also sounded remarkably like a serious warning. Or a straightforward threat! He wondered, too, about the Mercedes with its conspicuously anonymous dark glass windows, behind which he had seen the outline of the man already making a phone call as the car moved away.

Leaving the main port with its array of luxury yachts behind, he crossed over the rue de Foresta and stopped for a moment or two in a little park overlooking the commercial harbour. A cargo boat with an Amsterdam registration was being loaded. It looked huge to his eyes. 5,000 tonnes? 10,000? He
had no idea. Truffert, another of his colleagues, would have known. He had spent most of his life at sea before joining
Le Guide
.

Whatever the tonnage was now, it would be considerably more by the time it set sail. As far as the eye could see the quay was lined with huge white bags of cement and more were arriving by the minute. Each one must weigh a tonne or more. The ship was riding high out of the water and each time its crane reached over the side to hoist another load on board – ten bags at a time – there was a distinct roll.

It was like watching a ballet, and as so often happened when thoughts ran free he found himself back at the antique shop.

Why would anyone want to put him off? And had the officer arrived by chance? It was almost as though he’d been waiting round the corner expecting someone to turn up.

At the far end of the quay a ferry arrived from Corsica and almost immediately began to disgorge its load; cars and vans rather than cabin trunks. Air transport had taken away a lot of the romance of travel, and with it the excitement of arriving in a strange port at a leisurely pace. Nowadays the shock of encountering a strange culture often had to be absorbed in a matter of seconds.

A small boy on rollerblades buzzing to and fro behind him interrupted his train of thought and, it being a day for spur of the moment decisions, rather than follow the noisy traffic-ridden boulevard
Princesse de Monaco round the peninsula, he set off up the hill leading to the Colline du Château, the huge mound overlooking the harbour on one side and the Baie des Anges on the other.

It was where the Greeks had built their acropolis, only to have it demolished by the Savoyards, who replaced it with a citadel. That, too, had suffered a similar fate at the hands of the Sun King, Louis XIV.

Halfway up the hill he entered the Christian cemetery and stopped to get his breath back. A woman in black armed with a bucket of water and a scrubbing brush went past, joining the rest of her family on what was clearly a regular cleaning operation. An attendant waved a warning finger at a small group of Japanese tourists posing nearby, directing them to a notice on the gate saying the taking of photographs was forbidden.

Making his way to the outer wall, he looked out across the valley and was once again reminded of the bank robbery. Between where he was standing and the surrounding hills, the huge Palais des Expositions stood astride the entrance to the underground river where it had all started. A bare trickle now, but at certain times of the year, when the snows melted, it was probably a different matter.

Led by one Albert Spaggiari, who had managed to acquire a plan showing the layout of the sewer system, the thieves made their way down the Paillon, located the foundations of the main branch of the Société Générale Bank at 8 Avenue Jean Médecin, then
tunnelled their way into the vaults. Once inside, they welded the giant twenty-ton Fichet-Bauche door to its frame and spent the whole of one weekend quietly going through the strong boxes, the contents of which many owners had no wish to reveal.

Where there is great wealth, crime is never far away, and Nice was certainly no exception. He was glad he hadn’t had to work on the case. By all accounts there had been too much pulling of strings behind the scenes for his liking; too many nameless high-ups who’d had good reason to soft pedal the whole affair.

By contrast, the adjoining Jewish cemetery further up the hill was a sad affair; full of reminders of families torn apart by the Holocaust. It began just inside the entrance where there were two urns; one containing ashes from the victims of concentration camps and the other rendered down grease for making soap.

The sole occupant, a small man in a dark lounge suit several sizes too big for him, disappeared behind a tomb as soon as he entered, almost as though still fleeing for his life. Monsieur Pamplemousse left him to it.

Passing a cascade further down the hill a few minutes later, he automatically looked round for Pommes Frites. He would have revelled in its ice-cold water.

There was a moment when he thought he was being followed, but then decided he was imagining
things – it was only a mother and child in a pushchair. All three of them jumped at the sound of an explosion nearby and the child started to cry.

‘C’est normale.’
The woman gave the child a pat. ‘It is the noonday cannon,’ she added for Monsieur Pamplemousse’s benefit. ‘Or rather, it is the explosive device that has replaced it. It is not so nice.’

‘Nothing is for ever,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse.

He remembered now. The firing of a canon had been instituted by an Englishman who liked to make sure his meals arrived on time no matter where he happened to be. Such an admirable device was not to be ignored. Following the signs to the
ascenseur
he quickened his pace and was just in time to catch one going down.

Doucette was right, of course. They had no idea what size Monsieur Leclercq’s ‘work of art’ would be. The Director had been characteristically vague on that score. He couldn’t think why he hadn’t asked at the time, but then neither had she.

Paying his Fr.3.80 to the Madame at the bottom he registered the fact that
chiens
were half price. Given that Pommes Frites took up enough room for two adults it would be good value if he happened to join him on a return visit; especially if they did what he should have done in the first place – used it to go up rather than down.

Entering the Cours Saleya through the first of the old arched gateways, memories came flooding back. Teeming with life and colour; it was no wonder that
when Matisse lived there his doctor tried to persuade him to wear dark glasses to protect his vision.

Beyond the dazzling display of flowers – peonies, roses, carnations and lilies – lay the fruit and vegetable market with its mouthwatering displays of freshly picked apples, apricots, cherries and nectarines. Pyramids of pears and peaches fought for space alongside huge red tomatoes and tiny ripe Ogen melons from Cavaillon. Aubergines and peppers gave way to mounds of green and black olives and great fat bunches of garlic. There were tables laid out with
glacé
fruits, others with bowls of multicoloured dried herbs; saffron, cayenne and spices of all descriptions.

Around the perimeter of the market small cafés had local specialities on display:
pan bagna
– bread rolls split in half, sprinkled with olive oil and filled with tomatoes, green peppers and black olives;
pissaladièra
– pastry shells containing anchovy paste, olives and onion purée. Copper pans stood ready for the old favourite,
socca
. Made with olive oil and chickpea flour, they had to be eaten piping hot.

Through a gap in the crowd he suddenly caught sight of the man from the Jewish cemetery. Only a few stalls away, he was holding an artichoke up to the light with his left hand, as though studying it. With his other hand he held a mobile phone to his ear.

As their eyes met Monsieur Pamplemousse found himself wondering how many others in the world were doing exactly the same thing at that very moment, and decided that statistically not many, if any at all. Could
there be a woman somewhere, drumming impatiently because he was late home with the shopping? Somehow doubting it, he hurried on his way.

Passing the Opera House, he noticed the door to the Église St-François-de-Paule on the opposite side of the road was open. Taking advantage of a stationary delivery van caught up in the traffic, he skirted round the back of it, ignored the outstretched hand of a beggar hovering on the pavement, and slipped inside.

He was beginning to wish he’d brought Pommes Frites with him after all. Pommes Frites would have seen him off whoever he was.

After the noise and bustle of the Cours Saleya the atmosphere inside the church was an all-enveloping oasis of calm and serenity. Its richly baroque décor made it feel as though he had entered a different world.

An earnest group of tourists gathered round a carved olive wood statue to his left, comparing an entry in their guidebook to the real thing, eyed him curiously as he looked around for somewhere to hide.

The theatrical arrangement of stage boxes on either side of the altar was tempting, but grilles barred the way and he had no idea how to reach them from behind.

Crossing himself, he wondered whether to join the few silent worshippers dotted around on either side of the centre aisle, then decided against it. They were nearly all elderly women. He would stand out like a
sore thumb. Turning his back on them, he hesitated for a moment before gently opening an exit door to his left. As he had hoped, it led into what was virtually a tiny room, the left side of which was made up of a second glass-panelled door affording a discreet view of the street.

He was just in time to see the man appear from behind the van, clearly following the same route. The artichoke had been discarded, but he was still talking into the mobile; his eyes darting everywhere before he turned and began retracing his steps.

Monsieur Pamplemousse slipped out of the church while he had the chance. Feeling in his pocket for a coin, he placed it in the beggar’s hand in exchange for muttered directions, then continued on his way as fast as he could without actually drawing attention to himself.

Crossing the vast Albert 1st gardens straddling the one-time estuary to the Paillon, he followed a winding path threading its way in and out of the palm trees. Keeping a bandstand to his left as instructed, and doing his best to avoid the occasional sudden flick from a watering system which threatened to soak any passers-by who weren’t careful, he set about negotiating the avenue du Verdun on the far side. Pursued by a hail of impatient horn-blowing, he headed towards the rue de Masséna, looking for the second of Bernard’s recommended restaurants: the Villa d’Este.

It was yet another area of Nice that had changed
since his last visit. Apart from an occasional service vehicle nosing its way through the crowd, the street was closed to normal traffic. Tables and chairs from restaurants nestled cheek by jowl with designer boutiques. They spilt out on either side, taking up every available space. He glanced at his watch. Although it was barely a quarter to one, most were already more than half full.

‘Try the
Jambon de Parme veritable
with melon,’ had been Bernard’s advice. ‘You won’t get better this side of the Italian border – if then.’

Seating himself between two girls, each with a mobile phone, Monsieur Pamplemousse placed his order.

Watching the ham being cut, he immediately felt at home. The twisting, the caressing, the squeezing motion that went into the operation was both an act of love and a work of art. Alongside the carver, another man wielding a long wooden paddle was feeding pizzas into a wood-fired oven.

Taste buds began to salivate in anticipation.

Adding a
demi
Bandol rosé and a San Pellegrino to his order, he helped himself to some bread and sat back prepared to enjoy himself.

Not to be outdone in the electronic stakes, he removed the laptop from his trouser pocket, powered it, and set up the Smart Capture facility. It hardly merited a passing glance from either of the girls.

Two rollerbladers gliding effortlessly in and out of pedestrians on the crowded concourse, missing people
by a few centimetres either way, swooped into close-up, their faces momentarily distorted, then disappeared again just as quickly. He let them go.

The ham, when it arrived, was exactly as Bernard had described it,
parfait!
So
parfait
in fact, he almost missed seeing the Putin lookalike hurry into view.

As soon as the man realised he’d been spotted he did a U-turn. Pausing outside another restaurant further along the street, he pretended to read the menu. Reaching for the keyboard, Monsieur Pamplemousse was just in time to record the image as he turned to go inside. He typed in the time – 12.55 – and filed the picture away under
PUTIN
.

He wondered how the man had caught up with him again so quickly. Ignoring the beggar outside the church the first time had been a mistake, but at least his tip on the way out ought to have made up for it.

Checking the loose change in his pocket, he realised that in his haste instead of giving the man ten francs to ensure his silence, he must have given him the 20 centimes coin he’d received in his change from the lift attendant.

It was a case of the
clochard’
s revenge and no mistake.

The girl to his right had ordered a pasta dish of some substance. Checking with the menu he identified it as the Niçoise version of
picagge verdi,
made without sausage, but with Swiss chard, spinach and a little finely chopped salt pork. She carried on her telephone conversation as she picked at it with a fork.

The girl on his left was already attacking a giant pizza. Piping hot from the oven, it was large enough for a whole family. She, too, carried on with her conversation.

Dressed in black trouser suits, with dark sunglasses and matching black lacquered fingernails, both girls looked cool in every sense of the word. Both were pencil slim, although from their conversation more 2H than 3B, and he didn’t exactly envy their boyfriends.

Nearing the end of his ham, he finished off the wine, then eyed their plates enviously. If they could get away with it, there was no reason why he shouldn’t too. In the interests of research and of keeping his adversary kicking his heels, he felt tempted to give one or other a try. On the other hand …

It could have been sheer coincidence that the man was following the same path as he was. Stranger things happened all the time, but instinct told him it wasn’t, and instinct was something you ignored at your peril. Shutting down the laptop, he stowed it away in his trouser pocket. There was only one way to find out. Waving his napkin he caught the waiter’s eye.

‘Oui, Monsieur. Il conto.’
His bill was ready and waiting.

This time luck was with him. Choosing his moment, he made a quick exit while he was screened from view by a group of tourists studying the menu on a metal display stand.

The look on the man’s face as he gave him a nod
while strolling past was a study in frustration. Skirting round a large woman with a sun-hat and oversize Reeboks trying unsuccessfully to pay for an ice-cream cone with a dollar bill, he slipped into a boutique further along the rue Masséna. Putting a rack of clothes in the middle of the floor between himself and the door, he waited.

‘Monsieur?’
A girl emerged from behind a counter at the rear of the shop and looked at him enquiringly.
‘Qu’est-ce que vous désirez?’

‘Je regarde seulement,’
said Monsieur Pamplemousse hastily. ‘I am only looking.’

The last thing he wanted was to be trapped inside the shop. Unless … he ran his eye along the rack …

Twenty minutes later, having made sure he wasn’t being followed, armed with a carrier bag and a copy of
Le Figaro,
he boarded a single-decker Metrazur Ventimiglia-Cannes stopping train for Antibes. There were no Mormons on board as far as he could see; in fact it was less than a quarter full.

Feeling in need of a quiet think, he placed the carrier bag on the opposite seat in the hope that it would save him being disturbed, settled down, then immediately wished he hadn’t.

On the other side of the aisle two Englishmen were holding forth. It was marginally worse than the girls he’d had to endure at lunchtime. At least the latter had kept their voices down.

Burying his head in the
journal,
he tried hard not to listen in, but it wasn’t easy.

‘When I get to Gatwick I have to drive all the way to Haywards Heath against the flow of the traffic.’

‘Hard luck!’

‘The thing is, what am I going to do about the
langouste
in the boot of the car?’

Everyone had their problems. Some seemed more pressing than others.

There was no mention in the
journal
of the previous evening’s affair at the hotel, but then it would have been surprising if there had been. It was hardly an event of national importance. He should have picked up the local
Nice Matin
for that.

Farmers were blockading the roads in Brittany. A group of them had emptied a trailer-load of manure on the steps of a town hall. Nurses were holding a protest march in Paris, demanding more pay and better working conditions. Nothing changed.

Removing the laptop from his trouser leg pocket, Monsieur Pamplemousse opened the lid and pressed the start button. Conscious that the others went quiet as soon as they heard the burst of music accompanying the automatic booting up operation, he returned to his
journal
and waited.

The Euro had lost a couple of points against the dollar. Charles Aznavour was appearing at the Palais des Congrès in Paris.

Perversely, he now found himself straining to hear what was being said on the other side of the aisle.

‘Extraordinary really. When you think the first hard disk on an IBM was like a flywheel. Weighed a ton.’

‘Coated with the same paint they used on the Golden Gate Bridge, so they say.’

‘Their latest microchip is 800 times thinner than a human hair.’

‘How about the Intel Pentium 4? 10 million transistors and several kilometres of wiring packed into a square centimetre.’

‘That’s progress for you.’

‘Did you see where he kept it?’

‘Inside his trouser leg! Something new every day.’

‘It’ll never catch on.’

‘Bet you he’s got some kind of magic act. Kid’s parties, perhaps. Or cabaret.’

‘Ideal for a rep, of course.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse wondered for a moment what a rep was, then he remembered. It was the English term for a
voyageur de commerce
. Which, in a way, he supposed he was.

‘Looks more like a doctor to me. Probably entering up his notes.’

‘Or a policeman.’

‘Watch it!’ They dissolved into chuckles at the thought.

All the same, they had made it in four. Monsieur Pamplemousse scrolled back to the first picture. Did he really look like a policeman? He couldn’t see it himself. But then, you never did see yourself as others saw you.

He felt tempted to pass some kind of comment. It didn’t take an ex-detective to guess they must
be heading for the International Science Park at Valbonne Sophia-Antopolis; the French equivalent of Silicon Valley in California.

It was hard to imagine why anyone would want to leave a
langouste
in the boot of their car – harder still to see what the problem might be if they did. Unless, of course, the man was flying back to England. In which case it probably smelt to high heaven by now. If he were travelling with hand baggage he wouldn’t be too popular.

Glancing down at his laptop he realised the screensaver was on. Restoring the picture, he entered the Still Viewer. The journey provided a good opportunity to recap on the pictures he’d stored. At least he didn’t have to wait for them to be processed.

There was a pause, then the last shot taken outside the restaurant came up on the screen. He’d been a fraction late on the button. The Putin lookalike was already half out of frame on the left-hand side, carefully avoiding his gaze as he went.

Shifting the pointer onto a sliding bar Monsieur Pamplemousse tried moving it along to the left, and found himself scrolling back at speed through the complete set of images he had captured during the day. Apart from the first mirror image of himself, he was building up a regular rogues’ gallery.

The Englishmen had resumed their conversation, having changed the subject completely. He wondered if they always talked at the top of their voices, or whether it was because they assumed no one would
understand what they were saying. Either way showed a kind of arrogance.

‘Breast-feeding isn’t allowed in our Houses of Parliament on the grounds that it’s forbidden to bring refreshments into the Chamber.’

And they said the French were devious! He made a mental note to store it for future use. It would be a good conversation stopper.

The second picture of the boat with the Panamanian flag was followed by the one he’d taken at the beach café. He stared at the screen.

At the time he’d hardly registered the scene. Now, seeing it again as a static shot, it clicked home. The man turning his head briefly towards the camera was one and the same as the policeman he’d encountered in Nice. Admittedly he had been wearing sunglasses on the second occasion, but he recognised the jacket. It was food for thought.

He was half-right about the Englishmen. As the train approached Villeneuve-Loubet station the one with the problem awaiting him in his boot made ready to leave.

‘Give my regards to the little woman. Have a good flight.’

‘
Ciao!
See you back at the ranch in a week’s time.’

He gave a nod in Monsieur Pamplemousse’s direction as he left. Monsieur Pamplemousse took pleasure in responding in English.

‘Good luck with the
langouste.
’

It was like the proverbial water off a duck’s back.

As the train gathered speed again, the vast curving terraces of the luxury apartments of the Marina-Baie des Anges came into view; a permanent eyesore to some, a way of life to others. It was followed by a long, straight stretch of parallel road and rail and a pebbled beach crowded with sun-worshippers.

He felt a momentary pang of remorse. His own ‘little woman’ must have been looking forward to their unexpected time away together. His absence must be maddening for her, although over the years she had undoubtedly grown used to it. Much of their married life had been spent apart. Office hours as such hadn’t existed during his time with the Paris
Sûreté
, and since working for
Le Guide
he spent more time away from home than ever. Pommes Frites saw more of him than she did, although even that didn’t seem to be the case this time round. Not that he was happy lying on a beach all day, and luckily Doucette felt much the same way, although she was better at it than he was and enjoyed the opportunity for a swim.