The Diamond Caper (10 page)

Despite the demands placed on him as the chronicler of
les people,
Philippe found that he still had time to think about his scoop—the exclusive revelation of the true story behind the unsolved robberies. This in turn led him to refine an idea that had been in the back of his mind for some time: a series that featured the homes of the rich and famous. Now, he thought, the robberies could add another dimension to that idea. It was obvious that the victims of those robberies were, if not famous, certainly rich. And the mysterious circumstances surrounding the robberies had the makings of the kind of story that the readers of
Salut!
would find irresistible.

The problem, of course, would be persuading the owners to give him access to their homes. His old ally, human nature, would help; he was still astonished that the lure of celebrity was potent enough to make people agree to all kinds of invasions of their privacy. But this time, he would probably need something more, a rational excuse for them to throw open their front doors. It was time, he decided, to share his thoughts with Sam.

It was the morning after the swimsuit fashion show at Saint-Tropez when they met for coffee at Le Pharo.

“How was it?” said Sam.

Philippe shook his head. “Amazing. After the first half-hour the bikini tops started dropping like leaves in autumn. Perfectly tanned bosoms everywhere—you'd have loved it.”

Sam grinned. “Sounds like a tough job, but I guess somebody had to do it. Now, what's this idea you want to talk about?”

After Philippe had finished, Sam was silent and thoughtful for a few moments. “Well,” he said finally, “it's not a bad idea, but I don't know if the owners would want to be reminded of a lousy experience. You're right—we need to find a serious reason to get them to let you in.”

“You two look like you're plotting. Can I join in?” It was Elena, back from a morning swim and desperate for coffee. She filled a cup from the
cafetière
and looked at them expectantly. Sam took her through Philippe's idea, and repeated his own reaction.

Elena nodded. “I can see the problem. I suppose the obvious thing to do would be to give it a try—you know, ask them how they feel about having their homes photographed.”

Sam nodded slowly and turned to Philippe. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” Philippe looked blank. “Our favorite insurance executive, Ms. Morales, already knows two of the victims—that couple in Nice, the Castellacis. How about asking them?” They both looked at Elena.

She shook her head. “We could try. But why would they want to say yes? What's in it for them?”

Sam sighed. “That's the big question. The last thing they would want, I guess, is to become celebrities for being robbed. And let's not forget the main reason for wanting to get into these places is not—forgive me, Philippe—to do an article for
Salut!
It's to see if we can pick up anything that would help us get somewhere with these robberies.”

Elena was frowning as she removed her sunglasses and, in a somewhat absentminded way, started to polish them on the corner of her towel. “I'm beginning to get an idea,” she said. “Supposing I asked the Castellacis if I could introduce them to Knox Insurance's top investigator, the European claims inspector, Mr. Sam Levitt? And supposing Mr. Levitt was working on a new security project that would make homes more burglar-proof than they had ever been before?”

“Isn't it a little late for that?” said Sam. “I mean, the thief has already paid them a visit. The diamonds are gone. The damage has already been done.”

“Of course. But the diamonds will probably be replaced. And besides, they have other stuff that has to be insured. We could tell the Castellacis that if they agree to help us, we would install the new system for free once it's been perfected. We might also say there's a chance that their premium would be reduced, which would appeal to that miserable little bastard of a husband.”

Sam leaned over and kissed her. “There's nothing I love more than an intelligent woman with great legs and criminal tendencies.”

The rest of the morning was spent discussing and elaborating Elena's idea, and by the time Reboul's chef came out shortly after noon to count the heads for lunch, they all felt that they had something to work with. As long as the Castellacis could be persuaded to agree.

Reboul himself had come back after a hard morning of banging heads in the office, and was delighted to find that he had three companions who could join him for lunch. He was in better spirits than they had seen him in for a long time, and the reason for this was revealed when the first glasses of
rosé
had made their appearance. His long-distance lady friend, Monica Chung, had agreed to take a break from her business in Hong Kong and spend the summer with him in Provence.

“I'm so happy for you,” said Elena to Reboul as they made their way to the table. “I remember Monica. She's lovely.”

“Not only that,” said Reboul, “but she's a wonderful cook, so I'm hoping that Alphonse will let her into his kitchen from time to time.”

And there was Alphonse, waiting for them at the head of the table. In addition to his duties as chef, he took great pleasure in announcing, often in great detail, what his guests were about to eat. This had led Sam to call him the Living Menu.

Alphonse tapped the rim of a wineglass with a knife. “Today, we start with a seasonal encouragement for the taste buds, a summer soup of chilled melon. The melons, to be sure, come from Cavaillon, melon capital of the world. And then to follow, a dish very popular with our friends in Corsica:
bresaola
—very fine slices of air-cured beef, served with olive oil, a sauce of melted Gorgonzola cheese, and baby roasted potatoes. And to finish, a two-tone chocolate mousse with a tiny whirl of vanilla on top.
Et voilà!”
After a short pause for applause, he returned to the kitchen.

Sam and Philippe brought Reboul up to date with their progress on the robberies; Elena brought him up to date with the progress on the house. By the time he left them having coffee on the terrace, he was almost giddy with information, and was looking forward to a peaceful afternoon in the office.

Philippe stretched, and looked at his watch. “I'm free for the rest of the day. Do you feel like showing me your new house?”

The antique door had been hung, the knocker attached, the windows fitted, and the exterior flagstones laid. Suddenly, the house had begun to look less like a bomb site and more like what a pompous real estate agent might describe as a desirable residence. Philippe couldn't get over the view, and became more and more thoughtful as he was shown around the inside of the house.

“What a wonderful spot,” he said. “Are you going to have a housewarming party?”

“Certainly,” said Sam. “The two of us, Mimi and you, and Francis. And maybe Alphonse in the kitchen. That's it.”

“Of course,” said Philippe. “I can understand that, even if I don't see much of it.”

“What's that?”

“Low-profile behavior.” There was a moment of hesitation before Philippe spoke again. “Would you think of making an exception? Mimi and I are going to get married in September, and this would be a sensational place for an after-wedding party.”

Elena and Sam looked at each other, and they both smiled. “On one condition,” said Elena. “We get invited.”

It had been a more than usually tiring day for Coco—starting in Nice, with side trips to Marseille and Cassis—and she was suffering from an overdose of impatient clients and whining workmen. By the time she got back to her office that evening, all she wanted was complete silence and a glass of good red wine.

She slipped off her shoes, went out to the terrace, and sat down with a sigh of relief. As if on cue, her cell phone rang.

It was Kathy Fitzgerald, bubbling with gratitude. “It was
so
sweet of you to have that cute Monsieur Gregoire come around. He went through the whole house, just making sure that everything was OK. What a great guy.”

Coco took a sip of wine to help her recover from her surprise. “I hope he wasn't a nuisance?”

“Not at all. He said that things could go wrong even when we weren't living in the house, and he wanted to make sure we hadn't moved back in and found problems.” Kathy continued in this way for several minutes, praising Gregoire's conscientious attention to detail, his efficiency, and, of course, his cuteness.

Coco was shaking her head as she put down the phone. What the hell did he think he was doing? She thought of calling him, but abandoned the idea in favor of another glass of wine. Gregoire could wait until tomorrow.

The three of them had gathered in Philippe's apartment, a block away from the Corniche, for a meeting of what Sam called the Marseille Sports and Social Club. At the top of the list of subjects to be discussed was the police report that Madame Castellaci had passed on to Elena after the robbery.

It made unexciting reading. The first page set the scene: address, owners' names, detailed description of the premises, date and approximate time of the robbery, estimated value of the stolen diamonds. With these formalities out of the way, it was time for page two, where the optimistic reader might have hoped to find some imaginative theories about how the thief had managed to enter the building, ransack the wall safe, and escape without leaving anything that resembled a clue. But imagination was in short supply, and this page merely catalogued the details of the security equipment, from the number and positioning of the electronic alarms to the impenetrable thickness of the door of the waterproof, fireproof wall safe. And then to the third and final page, rather grandly headed “Methodology and Conclusions.”

This was a litany of officialese, describing what had been done in the course of the investigation. The members of the Castellaci domestic staff had been “extensively questioned,” and their alibis had been “thoroughly verified.” The premises had been “rigorously searched,” unfortunately without finding anything except an empty safe; and so it went on, with one dead end followed by another. The conclusion, such as it was, stated that “further investigations will be conducted as and when appropriate.”

“Well,” said Sam, “that's about what we expected. And it doesn't get us anywhere. We'll see when we get the other two reports, but I guess they'll be pretty much the same.” He turned to Elena. “Over to you, Madame Sherlock. It's time we tried your idea.”

Elena nodded. “OK, but I'm not going to make the call with you two hanging over me. I need a little space. Philippe, where's your bathroom?”

Philippe showed her into the bathroom, apologizing for the lack of a comfortable chair.

Elena perched on the toilet seat. “This'll do fine—I'm not planning on a long stay. Could you close the door on your way out?”

Five minutes passed. Sam and Philippe, pacing up and down the living room, agreed that this was a hopeful sign. At least the Castellacis hadn't told Elena to get lost. And when, a few minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom, it was with a broad smile on her face.

“There you are, boys. If you need something done, ask a woman to do it. By the way, Philippe, it's time you changed those towels.”

Philippe winced, then waved a hand at her, as if to say that he was far too busy to attend to minor domestic details.

“That's terrific. I want to hear all about it,” said Sam, giving Elena a hug. “But not on an empty stomach. How about lunch?”

“How about Chez Marcel?”

Settled around a table on the restaurant terrace, the menus considered and dealt with, a bottle of Corsican
rosé
in the ice bucket, the postmortem on Elena's phone call could begin.

“Luckily,” she said, “the housekeeper picked up the phone. If it had been the husband, I think he'd have told me to get lost. So now it's me and Madame Castellaci, and she's altogether more reasonable. We chatted for a couple of minutes, and she told me her husband's in New York this week for a linguine festival organized by the Italian tourist board. Bet you're both sorry you missed that.” Elena paused for a sip of wine. “Then she asked me why I'd called, and I got going on the story. Sam, you'd have been embarrassed—although, knowing you, maybe not. I told her that one of the keenest brains in the insurance business had been sent over from L.A. with a brief to upgrade the security arrangements for all Knox clients in Europe. This is a man revered by other insurance executives who know him—and there are very few of those, because he prides himself on his personal discretion—for his ability to outthink the criminal mind. It is this exceptional talent that helps him provide such effective security solutions for his clients.”

“Don't tell me,” said Sam. “Then she asked where was he when we needed him.”

“I didn't give her a chance. I went on to say that this genius had just arrived in Nice, and would very much appreciate the opportunity to come with me and our CSP to see her.” She looked at Sam and Philippe, clearly pleased to see their puzzled faces. “You boys wouldn't know what a CSP is, because I just made it up; it stands for ‘crime scene photographer,' and it's our excuse for having Philippe with us. Anyway, she was all for it, and she suggested Thursday morning.”

“What about the husband?”

“I asked. She said this would be a nice surprise for him.”

Sam and Philippe raised their glasses to Elena just as Julie, the chef's wife, appeared with their first course. Guided by Philippe, they were having one of the Chez Marcel specialties, fried aubergines with a
coulis
of tomato and basil. And like all house specialties, this had to have a detailed presentation, delivered by Julie and translated by Philippe.

The aubergines are cut into thick slices, arranged in layers with salt from the Camargue between each layer, and left overnight to drain. In the morning, each slice of aubergine is dried, deep-fried in olive oil, and drained again on absorbent paper. Then,
la touche finale,
the slices are arranged in the shape of a daisy, with the
coulis
of tomato with fresh basil and olive oil poured into the middle.
Bon appétit!

In unison, Philippe and Julie kissed their fingertips, glasses were refilled, and conversation was resumed.

Elena tasted her aubergine with a little sigh of satisfaction. “You'll have to dress for this visit, you know. Dark suit and a tie for you, Sam. And something a little more formal than a
Salut!
T-shirt for Philippe.”

“What about you?” said Sam. “Shorts and high heels?”

“Of course. Isn't this delicious?”

And so were the courses that followed: simple but perfect lamb chops, with potatoes roasted, in the Provençal way, in olive oil; and to finish, homemade iced nougat with lavender honey from the local bees.

Over coffee, they were starting to go over the details of their meeting when Sam turned to Elena. “There's one thing that bothers me about all this,” he said, “and that's how you feel about it. I mean, what we're doing may not qualify as a serious crime, but it's certainly misrepresentation, possibly fraud, and perhaps not what a well-brought-up young lady can feel comfortable with. Have you thought about that?”

Elena reached over to give Sam's hand a squeeze. “Of course I have. But you have to remember all those years I've spent in the insurance business. I've found that clients lie all the time, and usually the richer they are the bigger the lies. That's not an excuse for doing what we're doing, but it's a reason. And here's another one: I'd be surprised if we didn't find that at least one of these three robberies was an inside job, a self-inflicted scam. Now, that's a crime, and I'd be happy to play a part in solving it. And besides—are we doing any real harm? I don't think so. In other words, to answer your question, I'm quite comfortable.”

Madame Castellaci's housekeeper let them in and took them through to the living room, where madame was waiting to receive them. As instructed by Elena, Sam was in a dark-blue suit with a sober tie, and Philippe had forsaken his T-shirt for a respectable white linen jacket and freshly pressed jeans. Slung over his shoulder was Mimi's Nikon. Elena, in her business black, made the introductions.

“Very well,” said Madame Castellaci. “Your colleague Ms. Morales has already explained the purpose of your visit. Where do you want to start?”

The tour of inspection began with the safe. Sam, in his role of security expert, tested the combination lock and instructed Philippe to take photographs of the safe with its door open and closed. They then moved on to check the alarm devices and the wiring in each room and the level of protection provided by the windows and shutters, with Philippe taking photographs and Sam making copious notes as they moved through the house. An hour had gone by before they arrived back where they started, at the front door. Madame Castellaci had watched with interest but without comment until Sam put away his notebook.

“So,” she said, “have you seen enough? Now what happens?”

Sam smiled. “A lot of thinking, and some research. You have a conventional alarm system. Unfortunately, a professional thief doesn't operate by conventional rules. Whoever robbed you will have studied all the existing systems, and worked out how to bypass them. You tell me that your system was installed four years ago; is that right?” Madame Castellaci nodded. “Well, I'm afraid that technology can change a lot in four years, and the fact is that the professional thief is usually one step ahead of the security industry. He also knows that very few people have their alarm systems checked and updated every year. How about you?”

“Well, we've been meaning to, but…”

“I know,” said Sam. “As long as there aren't any obvious problems, people don't bother. But let me tell you about what I'm working on at the moment, with a company in California. It's a device no bigger than a pack of cigarettes that links you to your alarm system when you're away from your house. The slightest interference with the system will activate the device; a buzzer will sound, in your pocket or handbag, and you can immediately call the police. With luck, they'll get there while the thief is still busy.”

“Won't he know that he's set something off?”

Sam shook his head. “The only person who will know is you. It may not be the ultimate solution, but it'll help, and the people in California are perfecting it right now. It should be available by Christmas.”

“Sam, I'm impressed,” said Elena. “Where did that idea come from?” They had stopped in at a café not far from the Castellaci house.

“Childhood research. I think it was in an old Dick Tracy comic book. Although, come to think of it, perhaps it was a techno bore I met last year in L.A. telling me how smart his new phone was. But I prefer to have Dick Tracy get the credit.”