Ripley Under Water (3 page)

Tom heard laughter, certainly a woman’s laugh, maybe mingled with a man’s. And yes, it had come from the pond area between Tom and the house, an area nearly hidden by a hedge and a couple of trees. Then Tom glimpsed the pond, saw twinkles of sunlight on it, and had an impression of two figures lying on the grass there, but he wasn’t sure. A male figure stood up, tall, in red shorts.

Tom accelerated. Yes, that had been David himself; Tom was ninety percent sure.

Did the Pritchards know his car, the brown Renault?

“Mr. Ripley?” The voice had come faintly but clearly.

Tom drove on at the same speed, as if he’d heard nothing.

Damned annoying, Tom thought. He took the next turning left, which brought him into another small road with three or four houses along it, farm fields on one side. This was the way back into the center of town, but Tom turned left in order to take a road at right angles to the Grais’ road and to approach the Grais’ turret house again. He kept the same easy rate of speed.

Now Tom saw the Grais’ white station wagon in the driveway. He disliked dropping in without telephoning first, but perhaps with the news of new neighbors he could risk a breach of etiquette. Agnes Grais was carrying two great shopping bags from the car when Tom drove up.

“Hello, Agnes. Give you a hand?”

“That would be nice! Hello, Tome!”

Tom took both bags, while Agnes lifted something else out of their station wagon.

Antoine had carried a case of mineral water into the kitchen, and the two teenagers had opened a large Coca-Cola bottle.

“Greetings, Antoine!” said Tom. “I happened to be passing by. Nice weather, is it not?”

“That it is,” said Antoine in his baritone voice which sometimes made his French suggest Russian to Tom. Now he was in shorts, socks, tennis shoes, and a T-shirt of a green Tom especially disliked. Antoine had dark and slightly wavy hair and was always a few kilos overweight. “What is new?”

“Not much,” said Tom, setting the bags down.

The Grais’ daughter, Sylvie, had begun unloading in an experienced way.

Tom declined a glass of Coke or wine. Soon Antoine’s lawnmower, which ran on benzine and not electricity, would start buzzing, Tom supposed. Antoine was nothing if not diligent in his Paris office and here in Villeperce. “How are your Cannes tenants working out this summer?” They were still standing in the big kitchen.

The Grais had a villa in or near Cannes which Tom had never seen, and which they rented during July and August, the months when they could get the best rent for it.

“They paid in advance—plus deposit for the telephone,” Antoine replied, then shrugged. “I would think—all is okay.”

“You’ve got some new neighbors here, did you know?” Tom asked, gesturing in the direction of the white house. “A couple of Americans, I think—or maybe you know about them? I don’t know how long they’ve been here.”

“No-on-n,” said Antoine thoughtfully. “Not the next house.”

“No, the one beyond. The big one.”

“Ah, the one that is for sale!”

“Or rent. I think they rented it. His name is David Pritchard. With his wife. Or—“

“American,” said Agnes musingly. She had heard the last part. Hardly pausing, she put a head of lettuce into the bottom compartment of the fridge. “You met them?”

“No. He—” Tom decided to go ahead. “The man spoke to me in the bar-tabac. Maybe someone told him I was American. I thought I’d let you know.”

“Children?” asked Antoine, with black brows coming down. Antoine liked quiet.

“Not that I know of. I’d say not.”

“And they speak French?” asked Agnes.

Tom smiled. “Not sure.” If they didn’t, Tom thought, the Grais would not wish to meet them and would look down on them. Antoine Grais wanted France for the French, even if the outsiders were temporary and merely rented a house.

They talked of other things, Antoine’s new compost box that he was going to set up this weekend. It had come in a kit that was now in the car. Antoine’s architectural work was going well in Paris, and he had acquired an apprentice who would start in September. Of course Antoine was not taking August off, even if he went to an empty office in Paris. Tom thought of telling the Grais that he and Heloise were going to Morocco, and decided not to just now. Why? Tom asked himself. Had he unconsciously decided not to go? Anyway, there was time to ring up the Grais and inform them, in a neighborly way, that he and Heloise would be absent for perhaps two or three weeks.

When Tom said goodbye, after invitations on both sides to come in for a glass or a cafe, Tom had the feeling that he had told the Grais about the Pritchards mainly for his own protection. Hadn’t the telephone call purporting to be from Dickie Greenleaf been a menace of sorts? Definitely.

The Grais children, Sylvie and Edouard, were kicking a black-and-white soccer ball back and forth on the front lawn as Tom drove away. The boy waved to him.

Chapter 3

Tom arrived back at Belle Ombre to find Heloise standing in the living room. She had a restless air. “Cheri—a telephone call,” she said.

“From whom?” asked Tom, and felt an unpleasant start of fear.

“From a man—he said he was Deekie Graneleaf—in Washington—”

“Washington?” Tom was concerned about Heloise’s unease. “Greenleaf—it’s absurd, my sweet. A rotten joke.”

She frowned. “But why—this choke?” Heloise’s accent had come back in force. “Do you know?”

Tom stood taller. He was the defender of his wife, and also of Belle Ombre. “No. But a joke from—somebody. I can’t imagine who. What did he say?”

“First—he wanted to speak with you. Then he said—something about sitting in a fauteuil roulant—wheelchair?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Because of an accident with you. The water—”

Tom shook his head. “It’s a sadistic joke, my darling. Somebody pretending to be Dickie when Dickie was a suicide—years ago. Somewhere. Maybe in water. No one ever found his body.”

“I know. So you told me.”

“Not only I,” Tom said calmly. “Everyone. The police. The body was never found. And he’d written a will. Just a few weeks before he was missed, as I recall.” Tom believed it utterly as he said it, even though he had written the will himself. “He wasn’t with me, anyway. This was in Italy, years ago—when he went missing.”

“I know, Tome. But why does this—person annoy us now?”

Tom pushed his hands into his trouser pockets. “A bad joke. Some people want some kind of—kick, a thrill, you know? I’m sorry he has our telephone number. What kind of voice?”

“He sounded young.” Heloise seemed to choose her words carefully. “Not so deep voice. American. The line was not so clear—the connection.”

“Really from America?” Tom said, not believing that it was.

“Mais oui,” said Heloise, matter-of-factly.

Tom managed a smile. “I think we should forget it. If it happens again, if I’m here, just pass the telephone to me, my sweet. If I’m not here, you must sound calm—and as if you don’t believe a word he’s saying. And hang up. You understand?”

“Oh, yes,” said Heloise , as if she did understand.

“Such people want to disturb other people. That’s how they get their pleasure.”

Heloise sat down at her favorite end of the sofa, the end toward the French windows. “Where were you just now?”

“Driving around. A tour of the town.” Tom made such a tour perhaps twice a week in one of their three cars, the brown Renault usually, doing something useful on the way, such as filling the tank at a supermarket near Moret, or checking the air in the tires. “I noticed Antoine had arrived for the weekend, so I stopped and said hello. They were just unloading groceries. Told them about their new neighbors—the Pritchards.”

“Neighbors?”

“They’re fairly close. Half a kilometer, no?” Tom laughed. “Agnes asked if they spoke French. If not, they’re off Antoine’s list, you know? I told her I didn’t know.”

“And what did Antoine think of our Afrique du Nord trip?”

Heloise asked, smiling. “Ex-tra-va-gant?” She laughed. The way she said the word made it sound very expensive.

“Matter of fact I didn’t tell them about it. If Antoine makes a remark about expense, I’ll remind him that things are pretty cheap there, the hotels, for instance.” Tom walked toward the French windows. He wanted to stroll around his land, look at the herbs, at the triumphant and waving parsley, the sturdy and delicious rucola. Maybe he’d cut a bit of the latter to go into the salad tonight.

“Tome—you are not going to do anything about that telephone call?” Heloise had the slightly pouting but determined air of a child asking a question.

Tom didn’t mind, because there was not a child’s brain behind her words, and the childlike air could be due to the long straight blonde hair falling over half her forehead now. “Nothing—I think,” Tom said. “Tell the police? Absurd.” He knew Heloise was aware of how difficult it was to put the police on to any “annoying” or porno (they’d never had any) telephone calls. One had to fill out forms and submit to a monitoring device, which would of course monitor everything else. Tom had never gone through it, nor would he. “They’re ringing from America. They’ll get tired of it.”

He looked at the half-open French windows, and chose to walk past them and go on to Mme Annette’s realm, the kitchen in the front left corner of the house. A smell of complex vegetable soup greeted his nostrils.

Mme Annette, in polka-dot blue and white dress and dark blue apron, was stirring something at the stove.

“Good evening, madame!”

“M’sieur Tome! Bon soir.”

“And what is the main dish this evening?”

“Noisettes de veau—but not big ones, because it is a warm evening,” madame said.

“True. It smells divine. Warm or not, I have an appetite. Madame Annette, I want to be sure you feel happy and free

to invite your friends when my wife and I are gone. Did Madame Heloise say anything to you?”

“Ah, oui! About your trip to Maroc! Of course. All will be as usual, M’sieur Tome.”

“But—good. You must invite Madame Genevieve and—the other friend?”

“Marie-Louise,” said Mme Annette.

“Yes. An evening with television, even dinner. Some wine from the cellar.”

“Ah, m’sieur! Dinner!” said Mme Annette as if that were too much. “We are very happy with tea.”

“Tea and cake then. You will be mistress of the house for a while. Unless of course you might want to spend a week with your sister in Lyons. Madame Clusot—we could arrange for her to water the indoor plants.” Mme Clusot was younger than Mme Annette, and did what Tom called the serious cleaning in the house once a week, the baths and the floors.

“Oh—” Mme Annette pretended to consider, but Tom felt that she preferred to stay at Belle Ombre in August, when householders often went on holiday, leaving the servants free, unless they were taken along. “I think non, M’sieur Tome, merci quand meme. I think I prefer to stay here.”

“As you wish.” Tom gave her a smile, and walked out through the servants’ door onto the side lawn.

In front of him was the lane, barely visible through some pear and apple trees and low bushes that grew wild. Down this unpaved way he had once wheeled Murchison in a barrow in order to bury him—temporarily. Also through this lane an occasional farmer still drove a small tractor toward the main streets of Villeperce, or appeared out of nowhere with a barrow full of horse manure or tied-up kindling. The lane belonged to no one.

Tom went on to his well-tended plot of herbs near the greenhouse. He had taken a long pair of scissors from the greenhouse, and now he snipped some rucola, and one parsley frond.

Belle Ombre looked as handsome from its back garden as from the front: two rounded corners with bay windows on the ground floor and the second floor, or first floor as the Europeans said. Its pinkish tan stone looked as impregnable as the walls of a castle, though Belle Ombre was softened by a Virginia creeper’s reddish leaves, flowering bushes, and a few large pots of plants near its walls. It occurred to Tom that he must get in touch with Henri the Giant before they left. Henri had no telephone, but Georges and Marie could give him messages. He lived with his mother in a house in a court behind the main street in Villeperce. Henri was not bright or quick, but was possessed of unusual strength.

Well, Henri had the height, too, six feet four at least, one meter ninety-three, as Tom figured. Tom realized that he had been thinking of Henri fending off a real assault on Belle Ombre. Ridiculous! What kind of assault, anyway? And from whom?

What did David Pritchard do all day, Tom wondered as he walked back toward the three French windows. Did Pritchard really drive to Fontainebleau every morning? And return when? And what did the rather dainty, pixielike Janice or Janis do all day to amuse herself? Did she paint? Write?

Should he drop in on them (unless of course he could get their telephone number), bringing a handful of dahlias and peonies, by way of being neighborly? At once the thought lost its appeal. They’d be boring. He himself would be a snoop for trying it.

No, he’d stay put, Tom decided. He’d read more about Morocco, Tangier, and wherever else Heloise wanted to go, get his cameras in order, prepare Belle Ombre for at least two weeks without a master and mistress.

So Tom did just that, bought a pair of dark blue Bermuda shorts in Fontainebleau and a couple of drip-dry white shirts with long sleeves, as neither Tom nor Heloise liked shirts with short sleeves. Heloise sometimes had lunch with her parents up in Chantilly, drove up alone as she always did in the Mercedes, and used part of the morning and afternoon for shopping, Tom supposed, as she returned with at least six plastic bags with shops’ names on them. Tom almost never went to the once-a-week lunch at the Plissots, as lunches bored him, and Tom knew that Jacques, Heloise’s father, merely tolerated him, and was aware that some of Tom’s affairs were shady. Well, whose weren’t, Tom often thought. Wasn’t Plissot himself covering up in the income-tax department? Heloise had let it drop (not that she cared) one time that her father had a numbered account in Luxembourg. So had Tom, and the money in it was derived from the Derwatt Art Supply Inc., and even from Derwatt sales and resales of paintings and drawings in London—less and less activity here, of course, as Bernard Tufts, the forger of Derwatts for at least five years, had died years ago, a suicide.