The Vintage Caper

by Peter Mayle

  Without realizing, he had drifted close enough to one of the stands to arouse the sales instinct of the proprietor, a vast, weather-beaten woman wearing a faded baseball cap and heavy-duty rubber gloves. “Eh, monsieur!” she bellowed at him. “Comme il est beau, ce loup!” She picked up a large and splendid sea bass and thrust it toward him, a smile splitting her brick-red face. Sam made the mistake of nodding and smiling back. Before he could stop her, she had picked up a knife and gutted the loup with lethal speed and precision before starting to wrap it. Not a woman to argue with, Sam thought. He bought the fish.

  As he started off back to the hotel, the clammy package tucked under his arm, he made a mental note to write down the recipe the woman had passed on to him. So simple, she had said, even a man like him could do it. Make two deep cuts in your fish, one on each side, and stick two or three short pieces of fennel in each cut. Paint the fish with olive oil. Grill on each side for six or seven minutes. Using a fireproof serving dish, place the fish on a bed of dried fennel stalks. Warm a soup ladle filled with Armagnac, set light to it, and pour it over the serving dish. The fennel catches fire, scents the air, and flavors the fish. “Une merveille,” she had said.

  His phone was ringing as he came into the hotel lobby.

  “Where are you?” said Philippe. “Ah, there you are-I see you.” He waved at Sam from the table where he was sitting with coffee and newspapers.

  “I’ll be right back,” said Sam. “I have to get rid of this fish.”

  Philippe showed no surprise. “Of course,” he said, as though a man wearing a business suit and a large dead fish were an everyday sight. “Sophie’s on her way down.”

  Sam approached the desk of the concierge, holding his catch in front of him with both hands. “My compliments to the chef,” he said, placing the fish on the desk, “and I would like him to have this loup de mer. It’s fresh from the market.”

  The concierge inclined his head and smiled. “Of course, monsieur. How very kind. I’ll see that he gets it immediately. Will there be anything else?”

  Sam went back to join the others, with a mental tip of the hat to the concierge for his sangfroid. Jeeves would have been proud of him.

  There was an air of expectancy about Sophie and Philippe, and Sam wasted no time getting started. “I have an idea,” he said. “But before I get to that, let me go over some of the background again. Stop me if you disagree with any of it. Now, we’re sure beyond a reasonable doubt that the stolen wine is in the cellar, and we have Roth’s fingerprints as proof. So we could blow the whistle on Reboul and go home. But what would happen then? The police would be all over him and Vial, and lawyers would get involved. If Reboul has covered his tracks-and I’m pretty sure he will have done that very thoroughly-all we can be sure of is that this whole business will take months to resolve. Probably years. Meanwhile, the wine will be taken into custody as evidence. And there will probably be a press embargo that would stop Philippe writing about a delicate case affecting a prominent man’s reputation. Reboul’s lawyers would make sure of that. I’d bet on it.” Sam stopped to let this sink in. “Any questions so far?”

  Sophie said nothing. Philippe chewed his lower lip and looked thoughtful. Sam went on. “There’s another aspect to this which I don’t think any of us anticipated. It turns out that Reboul and Vial seem to be pretty good guys. We like them, and we wouldn’t want to see them in trouble, and possibly in jail. Am I right, Sophie?”

  Sophie nodded. “I think it would be a shame.”

  “Me, too.” Sam rubbed his eyes. They were beginning to feel gritty from his lack of sleep. “OK. Now, I spent most of last night on this, and I think it could work. Worth a try, anyway, because it has a lot going for it.” Sam counted off the points on his fingers. “Number one, it lets Reboul and Vial off the hook. Number two, it gives Philippe another, maybe better story-a mystery, and he would be in the middle of it. Number three, it means that Sophie and I will have done our job for the people at Knox Insurance. We’ll have tracked down the wine. There’s only one snag. Up till now, we haven’t committed any serious crime-perhaps a little harmless misrepresentation, that’s all. But what I have in mind is illegal.”

  Philippe was back in his preferred position, perched on the edge of his seat, his feet starting to twitch. “How illegal?”

  “I thought I’d steal the wine.”

  Sophie laughed, and shook her head. “Mais c’est fou. You’re crazy.”

  Philippe held up his hand. “Just a minute.” He looked behind him as he leaned forward, every inch the conspirator. Anyone watching would have marked him down instantly as a man discussing a guilty secret. His voice was little more than a whisper. “You’ve worked out how to do it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Sophie had stopped laughing. “But Sam, we would be the obvious suspects. Reboul tells the police about this strange couple spending days in his cellar, and they find us, and then it is not him in jail. It’s us. No?”

  Sam shook his head. “We could argue that what we’re doing here is to recover stolen property on behalf of the client of an international, highly reputable insurance company. Our methods are a bit unorthodox, that’s all. But more important: what’s Reboul going to say? Someone’s stolen the wine I stole? I don’t think so. No matter how good his lawyers are, he won’t want Interpol on his back. No, I’m pretty sure he’ll keep quiet.”

  Philippe gave up chewing his lip to pour some more coffee. “Sam, you said something about a better story.” He looked at Sophie, and added quickly, “That is, if we decide to go ahead.”

  “Right. It begins with that old favorite, the anonymous tip-off-you must have had dozens of them before. Sometimes the motive is revenge, sometimes it’s guilt, sometimes it’s just mischief. Anyway, you receive a call from a stranger. He refuses to identify himself. He tells you about an extraordinary cache of wine that has been left in a remote spot-we’ll come to that later-and he tells you that it has been stolen. Perhaps he’s stolen it himself and can’t unload it. But he doesn’t go into details. In fact, there are no other details. Just directions that lead to the hiding place. You don’t really believe him, but you go there. What a surprise: you find the wine, just as your anonymous caller said. And there’s chapter one of your story.”

  Philippe nodded slowly. “Not a bad start. And I think I can see where it’s going.”

  “I’m sure you can. You investigate. You call all your contacts. And little by little, maybe article by article, you pick up clues that lead you to Los Angeles, where you interview Danny Roth and get his take on how the wine was stolen: Christmas Eve, the crooked caretaker, the ambulance, everything. That part is clear. The other part-who stole the wine-remains an unsolved mystery; Reboul and Vial are left out of it.” Sam looked from Sophie to Philippe. “What do you think?”

  “I like it,” said Philippe. “It could make a great series, like a feuilleton on television.” His feet danced a little jig of approval.

  They both turned to look at Sophie.

  It took some time to convince her that larceny was their best option. She tried to argue that they could just forget the whole thing and go home, but Sam reminded her it was too late for that: he had told Elena Morales. Knox International already knew the wine had been found, and they would follow up, with or without Sam. And so, after considerable soul-searching on Sophie’s part, it was agreed. They would steal the wine.

  Philippe was able to provide the solution to the next problem, which was where the wine could be hidden. His grandmother had owned a farm and a few acres of land on the Claparèdes, an isolated area in the Luberon. When Philippe was growing up, he used to spend the summers there, a pleasant family tradition that ended when his grandmother died. Unfortunately, she had left no will, which provoked a bitter inheritance squabble-not uncommon in France-between relatives who thought they were entitled to the property. This had been going on for thirteen years so far, and showed no sign of resolution. Meanwhile, the farm was uninhabite
d and sadly neglected. None of the competing relatives was prepared to pay to maintain a property that might eventually go to someone else-an undeserving wretch of a cousin, for instance, or the universally detested Aunt Hortense. Apart from its extremely remote location, Philippe said, the property had the advantage of a good-sized cellar, where the wine could be kept without risk of deterioration.

  “Sounds ideal,” said Sam. “Can you get in?”

  “The key’s hidden under a stone behind the well. Or there’s a shutter that never worked on the kitchen window. One way or another, getting in won’t be a problem.”

  “Fine. The next thing is transportation, and I don’t think your scooter’s going to be enough. Are you OK to drive a small van?”

  Philippe sat up straight, an indignant expression on his face. “All Frenchmen can drive anything.”

  “I thought so. We’ll rent something this afternoon.” Sam turned to Sophie. “Here’s where I’m going to need your help. I have to get into the house before it’s shut up for the night. My excuse for wandering around is that we have to take reference photographs, and the best time for that is in the evening, when the light’s really good. As soon as I get the chance, I’ll disappear. If Vial or anyone else asks where I am, you can say I had to go into town for a meeting. You keep taking photographs until the staff begins to leave, then get back to the hotel.” Sophie was frowning. “Then what happens?”

  “Let’s get something to eat. I’ll tell you over lunch.” At the mention of lunch, Philippe stood up and rubbed his hands. “Just one question,” he said. “When do we do this?” Sam looked at his watch. “In about six hours.”

  Twenty-one

  The hours after lunch were spent finalizing the evening’s plans. Philippe rented an unmarked white van-he described it as a plumber’s Ferrari-easily big enough to hold fifty cases of wine. Sophie called Vial to tell him that she and Sam would be taking exterior reference shots in the gardens around the house for an hour or so in the evening, and suggested that they meet for a drink afterward. Vial didn’t need to be asked twice.

  Sam spent the afternoon in a state of enforced inactivity, a kind of expectant limbo. There was little he could do now but hope for the best; luck had to be with him during the first crucial stage. He took his second shower of the day and changed into an outfit suitable for nocturnal burglary: dark-blue trousers, dark-blue T-shirt, dark-blue windbreaker. Everything else he threw into his suitcase. He checked and rechecked the batteries in his camera and penlight, and charged his phone. He went once again through the list of stolen wines before putting it in his pocket. He paced up and down his terrace, for once oblivious to the view. He came close to twiddling his thumbs. He was more than ready to go.

  The sun was beginning its daily dip toward the horizon, and the slanting golden light was a photographer’s dream as Sophie and Sam made their way up the entrance steps to the Palais du Pharo. Before they had a chance to ring the bell, the front door opened. The housekeeper, an elegant, gray-haired woman in a crisp linen dress, came out to greet them.

  “Florian told me to expect you,” she said. “You must let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  Sophie thanked her. “We’ll be outside for most of the time,” she said. “It’s such a marvelous light between now and sunset. But perhaps we could come indoors for one final shot through the living room window-you know, that moment just before the sun disappears into the sea. We saw it when we were with Monsieur Reboul, and it was quite spectacular.”

  The housekeeper nodded. “I’ll leave the terrace door open for you. I’m sorry you won’t have a chance to see Monsieur Reboul tonight. But he gets back tomorrow, and I’m sure he’d love to see the pictures.” With a smile and a regal flutter of her hand, she turned and went back inside.

  “What a bit of luck,” said Sam as they walked around the house toward the gardens overlooking the sea. “Tomorrow would have been too late. I imagine there’s always a reception committee when Reboul gets back from one of his trips.” He took his camera from his pocket and turned it on. “She’s quite a grand lady for a housekeeper, isn’t she?”

  Sophie looked up at the towering façade: three floors and countless windows. Reboul could have lodged a small army in there. “It’s quite a grand house.” She stopped, and put a hand on Sam’s arm. He could feel it was trembling. “Sam, I’m nervous.”

  He squeezed her hand and grinned. “Me too. That’s the way it should be. It’s when you’re not nervous that you get careless. Listen-you’ve been great all through this, and it’s nearly over. One last effort and you’re done.” He took her arm and guided her through the garden, his free hand panning the camera across the view. “Now, you’re in charge. Tell me where to start, and remember to point at what you want me to shoot. Wave your arms about. Stamp your foot. Tear your hair out. Make like a creative director. You’ll have an audience. I’m pretty sure our friend indoors will be keeping her eye on us to make sure we’re not disturbing the lavender.”

  They photographed the terrace, the clipped formality of the gardens, the 180-degree view, all the time conscious of the sun’s slow progress as it dropped closer and closer to the sea. Just before they had finished, Sam stopped, put his phone to his ear, and went through the motions of taking a call before putting the phone back in his pocket. “My excuse for leaving,” he said, and passed the camera over to Sophie. “Let’s go inside for the shot through the window. This is where I disappear. Can you take pictures with your fingers crossed?”

  They went into the house from the terrace, and crossed a small lobby before reaching the living room door. It was open. They were well inside the room before they realized they were not alone.

  “I’m sure you have made some lovely photographs. It’s such a perfect evening.” The housekeeper got up from the ornate little desk in front of the window where she’d been making notes and came toward them, gracious and smiling, the last person Sam wanted to see.

  He pasted an answering smile onto his face. “I’m so glad we caught you,” he said. “I’ve just had a call reminding me that I’m late for a meeting in Marseille, but I wanted to thank you before I left. Sophie’s taking over for the last couple of shots.”

  The housekeeper put on a diplomatic expression that managed to convey both disappointment and understanding. “What a pity you have to rush.” She made a move toward the door. “You must let me show you-”

  Sam held up a hand. “No, no, no. Please don’t bother. I’ll see myself out. Thanks again.” And with that, he hurried from the room, closing the door behind him.

  He crossed the main entrance lobby and slipped into the dining room. Tiptoeing past the twenty-seat table with its high-backed tapestry chairs, he came to the serving alcove and the heavy swing door that led to the kitchen. He put his ear to the crack between door and wall: nothing but the muted hum of refrigerators. He went through, past the gleaming array of stainless steel and copper, and into the back kitchen. In front of him was the door to the stairs that led down to the cellar; locked, as he had expected. He checked his watch. Six-fifteen. Sophie was meeting Vial at 6:30, and taking him back to the hotel bar.

  Sam braced himself for an uncomfortable quarter of an hour and opened the door of the dumbwaiter. What had Vial called it? “The elevator for bottles. There is no turbulence. The wine arrives relaxed.” He hoped he could do the same.

  In fact, the elevator for bottles was little more than a long box, hand-operated by the old-fashioned combination of rope and pulley. But it was a substantial piece of work, solid enough to hold the weight of half a dozen cases of wine and tall enough for the cases to fit one on top of another in a single stack. Almost coffin-shaped. Sam tried not to dwell on that as he caught hold of the thick rope that operated the pulley and wedged himself gingerly into the narrow space, wincing at the sound of the pulley creaking under his weight. He closed the door and drew a deep breath. The darkness around him held the faintly musty smell of corks and stale wine, the souven
ir of a bottle that had leaked during its journey upstairs. He fed the pulley rope through his hands, lowering himself slowly and with infinite care until he felt the soft thump that told him he’d arrived at cellar level.

  Florian Vial put the finishing touches to the jaunty upward sweep of his moustache and walked down the cellar to the stairway leading into the house, passing within six feet of the crouching figure inside the dumbwaiter. He was looking forward to seeing Sophie again, all the more after receiving her call to say that Sam wouldn’t be able to join them. A pleasant enough young man, of course, but Vial much preferred the intimacy of a tête-à-tête with Sophie, and there was the added advantage that they could speak French, a language made for gallantries.

  Sam heard Vial’s footsteps on the flagstones of the cellar floor, and gave him another few minutes to get up the stairs and into the house. He was by now beginning to suffer from mild claustrophobia and the onset of a cramp. His thigh muscles felt as though they had been stretched to the snapping point, and he was sure he’d picked up a splinter in his backside. But he’d made it. The cellar was his for the night, and the hours of physical labor ahead of him would come as a relief after his ordeal in the dumbwaiter.

  The pulley rope gave a final creak as he hauled himself out, and he stood for a few moments in the darkness, stretching the kinks out of his body. Even though the risk of being detected was minimal, he had decided to wait for a couple of hours before turning on the cellar lights and starting work. By then, just about everyone in Marseille would be observing the sacred ritual of dinner.

  Guided by the thin beam of his flashlight, he made his way down to the far end of the cellar, where he found everything as he had remembered it. The golf cart was parked in its place by the door, and the empty cartons from Domaine Reboul were piled up in the corner. These would have to be replaced with unmarked cartons, but there would be plenty of time later for that. He went into Vial’s office, settled himself in Vial’s chair, and put his feet up on Vial’s desk. Philippe answered his call after the first ring.