Treachery in Bordeaux (The Winemaker Detective Series) (3 page)

A
FTER
ANSWERING SOME LETTERS from some persnickety readers, filling out a check for the antique dealer in Blaye, checking with his secretary to make sure that the invoice registry was updated and planning several meetings for fall with Beaujolais estate owners, Benjamin Cooker left his office on the Allée de Tourny and walked to the laboratory he had set up on the Cours du Chapeau Rouge. Virgile was early and had introduced himself to the staff. By the time his employer came in, the assistant was already deep in discussion with Alexandrine de la Palussière, who was in charge of biological testing.

“I see you did not waste any time getting to know each other,” Cooker commented, catching his breath.

“Hello, Mr. Cooker. You didn’t take the elevator?” asked the young woman.

Virgile Lanssien shook Cooker’s hand, taking care to control his grip.

“Don’t worry, Alexandrine, I’ll survive,” the winemaker said, still panting, his hands on his lower back. “It will be my only workout for the entire month.”

Alexandrine de la Palussière was one of those discreetly elegant Bordeaux women who always wear clamdiggers to show off their tanned calves. She was a stylish woman around 30, of average height and delicate, with a small upturned nose, green eyes and bob-cut auburn hair held back with a clear mother-of-pearl headband. She was wearing a white blouse with the first two buttons astutely undone and a pair of beige leather flats. She was the last child in a line of fallen aristocrats and was not afraid to depart from the rules of her rank by pursuing advanced studies and working like a common mortal. In times past, her family had owned several acres of vineyards in the Haut Médoc, dominated by an enormous château. Her grandfather had ended up squandering this inheritance in Biarritz casinos and the posh bedrooms of high-class prostitutes. Unlike some penniless petty nobles who clung to appearances, this young woman bore no resemblance to the “dying race” that could still be found in Bordeaux. She was bright, pragmatic and unpretentious, satisfied to contribute her scientific knowledge to the world of wine that had for so long enriched and nourished her family.

“Where do things stand, Alexandrine?” Cooker asked calmly, once his breathing had returned to normal.

“I need five to eight days to get a reliable colony count.”

“That is way too long!”

“But that is the time needed to correctly isolate the yeast and take a count.”

“You have gotten me used to miracles. We need to find a quicker solution. Even some sort of emergency response, if possible!”

“I can’t make any promises, but we could possibly get quicker results by combining plating with a direct colony hybridization. We’ll need to use a specific sporulating
Brettanomyces
probe coupled with peroxidase. After membrane filtration and culture, in 48 hours I should be able to tell you if I can detect the micro-colonies.”

“Please, Alexandrine, make things simple!” Benjamin cut in.

The young woman widened her large green almond-shaped eyes, which would have appeared sweet, were it not for a sudden dark trace of irritation.

“Mr. Cooker, you know well enough that it is never simple to make things simple!”

“I’ll grant you that,” Benjamin said in a softer tone.

“What I can tell you is that there is no doubt about the nature of the contamination.”

“There’s no mistaking that smell of horse piss,” said Virgile.

Alexandrine ignored the comment and continued. “The smell of ethyl phenol becomes clearly perceptible once you reach 600 micrograms per liter. I believe there’s an even greater concentration in the samples you brought.”

“Do you need more samples?”

“It would be interesting to follow any changes on a daily basis while we are waiting for the first results.”

“Virgile will take care of that.”

“With pleasure,” the assistant murmured without turning his attention away from Alexandrine.

“If I use a consistent approach, I should be able to get a rather reliable quantification, although I won’t be able to discriminate perfectly between the living and dead cells, but it would be a good start. An increase in the concentration of phenols would certainly allow me to determine the threshold of alternation, and we could come up with a response strategy,” she said.

She perceived worry underneath Cooker’s imperturbable stiff upper lip, and to reassure him, she shrugged her shoulders and gave him an intentionally innocent look, as if to excuse herself for not being able to say more.

“The only decision you can make today is to isolate the contaminated wine.”

“Thank you, Alexandrine. I would like you to be the only person working on this case. Handle it personally, and make sure that it stays confidential.”

“Of course, Mr. Cooker. You can count on me. I do not know the owner of this estate, but tell him that we will find a solution.”

“I will try to reassure him.”

“In any case, insist that he do nothing until I have defined the exact pH of the wine, the oxidation and the colonies. He needs to avoid sorbic acid at all costs. It is totally ineffective in red wines, because it is very unstable in the presence of the high levels of lactic acid bacteria found in reds.”

“Call me as soon as you have something new,” the winemaker concluded.

Then he quickly made the rounds in the offices to greet the other staff members and introduce Virgile Lanssien. He couldn’t help pausing for a moment at the windows that opened onto the port, and then he reviewed the results of urethane-concentration tests that had been done on stone-fruit brandy. He scanned the report without going into the details, which covered the carcinogenic risk linked to urethane and fruit purees.

When it came time to leave the lab, he found Virgile doing his best to engage Alexandrine. He signaled that it was time to leave and walked out to the landing. His assistant was quick to join him.

“I understand your attraction, Virgile,” Cooker said in a low voice. “But you would be wrong to pursue her.”

“Is that so?”

“I think that boys have little effect on her.”

“Are you saying she’s …”

“I think that she is more moved by my secretary.”

“I never would have thought it. And I usually have a nose for detecting that kind of woman.”

“Virgile, think about getting your nose out of the glass from time to time.”

THE Rue des Faures smelled of lamb. A heavy aroma of spices and grilled meat rose up in thick swirls from the hodgepodge of Arab shops, suitcase salesmen and faded bistros. Benjamin pretended he was lost in the small streets weaving through the Saint-Michel neighborhood, lingering a little to take full advantage of the moment and enjoy these few stolen hours away from the upscale atmosphere in the Quinconces quarter.

Virgile had returned to Moniales Haut-Brion with instructions to carefully monitor the sample-taking process. They would meet around 10 a.m. the next day to come up with a battle plan to fight the yeast, whose presence the winemaker was having trouble explaining.

Cooker was holding the painting he had bought in Blaye against his chest. He had wrapped it carefully in brown paper and was on his way to Pascale Dartigeas’ restoration workshop near the Passage Saint-Michel. He pressed the doorbell and was greeted by the recorded croaking of a tree frog, which had replaced the original chimes.

“Come in, Mr. Cooker!”

Pascale Dartigeas appeared in a long white smock, a dainty paintbrush in her hand and a rebellious lock of hair hovering on her forehead. She was a beautiful 40. When she smiled, crow’s-feet appeared at the corners of her blue-gray eyes, and pretty dimples emerged in her cheeks. She showed the signs of a woman who had experienced a lot of unrestrained, selfless love, along with intense joy and periods of abandonment. She had certainly been disappointed by the thoughtlessness of men.

“Hello, Pascale. You look well today.”

“Thank you,” she said, brushing the hair off her forehead. “I hope you are not here for your overmantel panel. It won’t be ready before the end of the month, if all goes well.”

“Don’t worry. Take your time. I only came to show you my latest extravagance.”

“Extravagant people feel very much at home here.”

Benjamin carefully removed the brown paper and showed his painting with a satisfied smile.

“What do you think of that?”

“I have nothing to say, Mr. Cooker. It is more than charming. It is …”

“ …just what I love,” the winemaker interrupted.

“I have no doubt about that, but mostly, it’s surprising. I mean, it’s very curious. Have you noticed the man’s face?”

“What’s in the man’s face? Is something wrong with it?” Cooker grumbled, suddenly worried.

“Nothing serious, but it doesn’t look like it was part of the original painting. I think it has been repainted. It’s a rough job and not very recent, but it was added by another painter.”

“Are you sure?”

The art restorer called out to her intern, who was working in the back room, and asked her to bring a black light.

“Let me introduce Julie, who is doing her apprenticeship.”

Benjamin nodded at the young blond with big blue eyes. The cleavage of her small breasts and her long legs molded into a pair of tight jeans would certainly have driven Virgile wild. She held an ultraviolet lamp and flashed an ambiguous smile that threw the winemaker off a little. Pascale Dartigeas ran the Wood’s lamp above the canvas, and a dark stain suddenly appeared. All three of them were leaning over the painting as she repeated the operation several times.

“There is no doubt. It has been repainted. I propose we clean it up and see what’s underneath. Julie can start on that later today. Of course, that is if you will allow her to get a little behind on your overmantel, because she is the one who is working with solvents right now. For the time being, I’m touching up the wings of this Baroque angel you see over there, and I don’t have time to do the cleaning myself.”

“No problem, Pascale, I trust your judgment. And my overmantel appears to be in good hands.”

The apprentice, who was either timid or just reserved, ran the tip of her tongue over her teeth. She seemed to hesitate about something.

“What is it, Julie? I get the impression you’d like to say something,” Pascale said.

“Have you talked to Mr. Cooker about the second overmantel?” the intern asked in a soft voice.

“Oh, of course, what was I thinking?” said the art restorer. “I almost forgot to tell you that Julie worked on an overmantel that was identical to yours when she did her internship with my colleagues on Rue Notre-Dame.

Benjamin appeared irritated by this news. He had been certain that it was unique. He would demand an explanation from his antique dealer in Blaye soon enough, but Julie’s steady voice and blue eyes calmed him. There was grape harvesting, with people in the rows of grapevines, a small creek and rather tall, very green trees on the side, along with a manor with ocher-colored walls at the bottom. Yet, even though the cracking and snail-shaped scaling were similar, the paintings were not exactly the same. No doubt the same painter had done both overmantels. The aging, impasto, traces of mold, gaps and colors she had to regenerate all corresponded.

When she finished talking, Benjamin had trouble detaching himself from her blue eyes, which seemed to become brighter and brighter as her face became animated.

“Do you know the owner of the overmantel, Mademoiselle?” he asked, visibly excited.

“It belongs to Doctor Bladès, an ear-nose-throat specialist who works in the Saint-Gènes neighborhood. I think his office in on the Cours de l’Argonne.”

“I’m curious to see this overmantel. Can you see the little chapel near the manor house?”

“No, and it is just that detail that gives character to yours. Particularly the edge of the facade, which is especially delicate,” Julie said.

“It is the Mission Haut-Brion chapel. Monks dedicated it to the Virgin Mary toward the end of the 17
^th
century. There is no mistaking it, and I agree with you, it gives the painting character.”

“I took a picture of your overmantel before restoring it, if you are interested,” said Pascale Dartigeas. “I’ll lend it to you, but you’ll have to remember to bring it back for my records. In the meantime, what do we do with this repainted face of your cellar master?”

“I don’t know. Do your best, as always!”

“In that case, I have a proposition for you. We could do a portrait of you and replace the man’s face with yours. This was what people used to do, and I’m sure that this man has taken on the various identities of each one of the painting’s owners.”

The winemaker found the idea amusing and promised to come back with a picture for the restorer to use as inspiration. Then he asked to consult one of the eight volumes of the
Benezit Dictionary of Artists
to find out who was behind the painting’s signature. It was a certain T. Roussy, whom he found quickly on page 395 of volume seven covering artists with names between “Poute” and “Syn,” as shown in gold lettering on the spine of the book, which was the color of wine lees. Benjamin removed the cap of his fountain pen, took hold of his spiral notebook and leaned over the table to jot down the information.

“Toussaint Roussy, born in Sète (Hérault) in 1847 (French School). Studied at the School of Fine Arts. Curator at the museum in Sète. His career began at the 1877 Salon. The Sète museum has the following works:
The Fiddler’s Lunch
,
The Swiss Church
,
Entry to the Port of Sète
,
Beer Hour
. The museum in Béziers has
The Cooper’s Refreshment Stall
.”

The winemaker closed the thick volume and took leave of the two women with a courteous deference that exhibited his traditional upbringing and good British manners. When he stepped out of the workshop, he crossed the Place Saint-Michel and bought a lamb kebab from a tiny take-out. Then he went to sit at the base of the bell tower facing the church.

Around him, a group of acne-faced teenagers were playing with a soft-drink can. Young Kabyles from northern Algeria formed another group under a basketball hoop near the Gothic bell tower. On the steps in front of the church, a couple of lovers whispered to each other. Nobody paid any attention to Benjamin Cooker. The sun was warm, and no heads turned to see him savor his too-fatty, too-spicy overcooked sandwich that should have ended up in the first garbage can he found.