by Michael Bond
‘I take it Gaston didn’t make a habit of carrying that amount of explosive on his person, and even if he did, the funeral parlour would have been remarkably remiss not to come across it when they were laying him out.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse speared a chunk of herring and, having detached it from the whole, made play of busying himself by adding some onion and carrot to an already overladen fork.
‘So you think Semtex?’
‘Since Lockerbie it’s been the current favourite. It’s relatively easy to get hold of and has a good shelf life. It’s malleable so it can be moulded to fit any situation. It’s incredibly powerful for its weight. The original version had relatively little scent, so it used to be hard to detect. It even looks safe.
‘There was a case recently of a Scottish couple who set out for a holiday in France and the wife, not trusting that foreign muck, took along a packet of frozen pastry, planning to make some chicken pie. The airport police came across her unattended rucksack, took the contents for Semtex, and blew it up. The controlled explosion was rather less spectacular than expected and the Scottish couple went without their pie.
‘Forgetting basic questions like who was responsible for it, and why,’ continued Mr Pickering, ‘what do you think made Pommes Frites come into the church? He must have been on the trail of something.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse had been listening to the story with only half an ear. It reminded him of the insignia resting on top of the coffin. He wondered. It would be perfectly possible.
‘Bloodhounds are like that,’ he said. ‘They have enormous determination. Once they pick up a scent they never give up – they can follow it for hours. Also, it doesn’t have to be fresh. It can be many days old.’
Privately, he didn’t think Pommes Frites had been following a trail. His sense of smell wasn’t that good. At no time did he have his nose to the ground. His gaze had fastened on the coffin as soon as he entered the chapel.
‘He seemed to be making a bee-line for the coffin,’ said Mr Pickering, echoing his thoughts.
‘One of their drawbacks,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘is an abundance of loose skin. The folds sometimes restrict their vision so much they tend to bump into things by mistake.’
‘That must have been how he came to collide with the lectern and indirectly caused the coffin to be sent on its way.’
‘A lucky accident as it turned out,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse.
‘They’ve started adding ethylene glycol nitrate to Semtex to give it more smell,’ said Mr Pickering. ‘But if he hadn’t picked up on the scent, I wonder if he saw something happen in the car park? When did the coffin get to the crematorium?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse ran through his arrival ahead of the others in order to confer with the funeral director. He remembered it being placed in position while they were talking inside the chapel and he was being shown the lectern.
‘And Pommes Frites was still outside at that point?’
‘He wasn’t inside the chapel,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Put it that way. I left him in the car.’
‘All of which points to the fact that the bomb must have been timed to go off at some arbitrary point during the service. It was only by a sheer miracle that because it was cut short and finished early we all escaped with our lives. We might have ended up alongside Gaston.
‘Forgive me,’ he added. ‘One mustn’t speak lightly about an old friend and colleague.
‘It’s a miracle there were no casualties. I gather the staff at the crematorium was equally surprised at the coffin’s early arrival behind the scenes. They were all outside having a smoke. Taking a quick drag, as we would say back home.’
He gazed down at the recumbent figure half under the table. ‘I trust Pommes Frites’ devotion to duty won’t go unrecognised.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse gave another shrug. He couldn’t helping thinking it would be if the Commissioner’s acolyte had any say in the matter. It was a matter of some small satisfaction to him that he was clearly not alone in his dislike of the man. He had come off much the worst in the scrimmage outside the crematorium when the bomb went off. Others in the group had seized the opportunity to make a point or two with their boots while they were at it. Any self-respecting referee with his eye on the ball would have lost no time in reaching in his top pocket for some appropriate warning cards.
‘The Commissioner said he would be recommending Pommes Frites for some kind of award. I am not sure what he has in mind.’
‘Something more than a mere mention in dispatches, I trust,’ said Mr Pickering. ‘A bar to his Golden Bone perhaps?’
‘To be honest,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘he would be much happier with a real bone. He is currently particularly partial to knuckle of veal. They are getting more and more difficult to come by these days. Most of them go to restaurants where they boil them down for stock. By the time they have finished with them they are fit for neither man nor beast.’
Reaching down he administered a pat on the head. Pommes Frites, who had opened one eye at the mention of the word ‘bone’, opened the other and responded affectionately. He had been hoping his master wouldn’t take too long over the first course. Herrings were not high on his mental shopping list of desirable comestibles and he could detect the unmistakable smell of boeuf bourguignon coming from the kitchen.
‘There speaks the true French dog owner,’ said Mr Pickering. ‘To answer your question …’
‘Excusez-moi.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse withdrew a mobile from his trouser pocket.
Expecting a call from his wife, his heart sank when he realised it was a text message from Monsieur Leclercq, Director of Le Guide. It was short and to the point: ‘ESTRAGON! Return to base immediately. Bonne journée.’
‘I am sorry.’ He held up the screen for the other to see. ‘It will have to wait until another time.’
‘Bonne journée,’ repeated Mr Pickering. ‘You know, one of the things I love about your fellow countrymen is that in times of emergency you still retain your sense of politeness. We used to have it. Once upon a time, in 1871 to be precise, when the English explorer Henry Morton Stanley met Doctor Livingstone at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika, he commemorated the historic occasion with the simple words “Doctor Livingstone, I presume”. I fear things have gone downhill since then. It’s every man for himself nowadays, and devil take the hindmost. You can stand outside Harrods all day holding the door open and no one even notices you’re there, let alone bothers to say “thank you”.’
He looked keenly at Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Trouble back at the works, I assume? A little too much tarragon in the sauce somewhere or other?’
‘Something like that,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse vaguely.
‘That’s another thing I admire about you French,’ said Mr Pickering. ‘Your sense of priorities in times of trouble. Any other nationality would have considered an over-abundance of a herb in the sauce small beer compared with what took place this morning.
‘Having said that, I think if you don’t mind I shall stay put and finish off this excellent meal.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse resisted the temptation to explain that ‘Estragon’ was Le Guide’s code word for an emergency; one that was only to be used in exceptional circumstances. In simple terms it stood for ‘Drop everything. Come at once’. There were no excuses.
Removing the napkin tucked into his collar he called for the bill, at the same time signalling Pommes Frites to his feet.
Mr Pickering rose too and held out his hand.
‘That is very kind of you,’ he said. ‘I shall be heading for the Channel tunnel, but I have little doubt that we shall meet again soon. In the meantime I trust you will take good care of Pommes Frites. I know you always maintain he is well able to look after himself, but I strongly suspect he may have upset certain people today, or shall I say – a certain body of people, and he won’t exactly be flavour of the month.
‘I wouldn’t want him to suffer the same fate
as Rusik …’
‘Rusik?’ Monsieur Pamplemousse paused.
‘Rusik was a Siamese cat,’ said Mr Pickering. ‘He belonged to a Russian acquaintance of mine who was stationed near the Caspian Sea for his pains. Among his many accomplishments, Rusik had a talent for sniffing out sturgeon and through that he ran foul of the Mafia, who were smuggling large quantities out of the country for the caviar. It’s a one-billion-pound market these days.
‘To cut a long story short, Rusik’s olfactory powers proved to be his undoing. Shortly afterwards he was run down by a car, the victim of a contract killing. The final irony being that it was one of the very vehicles which had aroused his suspicions in the first place.’
It was a simple, but sobering story, and Monsieur Pamplemousse spent most of the long drive back to Paris mulling it over in his mind. One thing was certain; what was done was done and there was no going back on it. Mr Pickering’s cautionary tale had taken place in a relatively lawless part of Russia and there was no reason to suppose it would be repeated elsewhere. Or was there?
Entering the vast Da Vinci underground car park beneath the Esplanade des Invalides, Monsieur Pamplemousse deposited his 2CV on Level 1, as near to the exit on the west side as possible. He checked the time on his Cupillard Rième wrist watch. They hadn’t done badly; in all probability they were still ahead of the news about the morning’s events.
Instinctively, he found himself looking around to make sure there were no figures lurking behind any of the pillars, but the area they were in was too well illuminated for that.
All the same, his mood communicated itself to Pommes Frites, who took it upon himself to carry out a quick survey of the other vehicles, any one of which might have provided a temporary hiding place. But he, too, drew a blank.
A blast of hot air hit them as they climbed the exit stairs and emerged into the daylight. Once again Monsieur Pamplemousse looked around, first at the thin scattering of trees surrounding the exit, then towards a nearby clearing where the usual small group of men were playing pétanque beneath what little shade was afforded by the branches.
It was ridiculous, of course, but the very vastness of the esplanade somehow underlined his own and Pommes Frites’ vulnerability, and despite the intense heat he felt a cold shiver run down his spine as he turned his back on the scene.
Pommes Frites was an unmistakably large target, and he would never forgive himself were he to be the unwitting cause of his friend and mentor coming to any harm.
Having said that, Pommes Frites clearly had no such qualms; he was much more interested in the boules.
Just lately Monsieur Pamplemousse had taken to carrying with him a set of balls Doucette had given him for Christmas. For some years he had been harbouring thoughts of joining the local club in Montmartre when the day finally arrived and he had to retire. Having no wish to be treated as a beginner, he’d begun practising whenever he had the opportunity.
Pommes Frites had given his master a magnet on a string for picking up the balls when he got really old and could no longer stoop, but that day was far away. In the meantime he was more than happy to do the job for him.
It was a satisfactory arrangement on both sides. As far as Pommes Frites was concerned, Monsieur Pamplemousse threw the boules and at a given signal he went to fetch them. In return, despite the need to give them a good rub down with the small towel no self-respecting player was ever without (it was against the rules to play with a wet boule), Monsieur Pamplemousse was more than happy to let him join in. It was good exercise.
Talking of exercise … Instead of going straight into Le Guide’s offices, Monsieur Pamplemousse headed towards the southern end of the esplanade. After the longish drive he suddenly felt the need to stretch his legs a little.
Reaching the Place des Invalides, he waited while a never-ending stream of tourists on bicycles went past. They were closely followed by a dozen or so figures on the latest American craze to hit Paris: Segways – two-wheeled scooter-like platforms propelled by tiny electric motors.
Gliding single file along the pavement at a uniform rate, looking neither to the right nor to the left, their helmets combined with their upright stance to make the riders look for all the world like robotic invaders from some alien planet. Oblivious to the traffic lights and the tooting of horns, probably because most of them were unable to stop in a hurry, they crossed the road, then disappeared up the rue de Grenelle in the general direction of the Eiffel Tower.
Doubling back down the Rue Falbert, Monsieur Pamplemousse stopped outside a huge pair of anonymous wooden doors, withdrew a plastic card from an inside pocket, and applied it briefly to a metal plate set in the stone wall. There was an answering buzz and a moment later a small door let into one of the larger ones swung open to admit them.
Having at long last reached the comparative safety of Le Guide’s headquarters, he began to feel more cheerful as the door closed behind them. Even old Rambaud, the Gatekeeper, not exactly noted for being a bundle of laughs, looked friendlier than usual.
All the same, he didn’t really begin to relax until they were safely inside the lift.
Exiting the lift on the seventh floor, wondering what lay in store for him, Monsieur Pamplemousse tapped on a door facing him, waited a beat, then opened it and went inside.
Expecting the usual warm welcome from the Director’s secretary, he was disappointed to find the room unoccupied; in fact, not simply unoccupied, but despite the warmth of the day outside, there was a distinct chill in the air.
Pommes Frites noticed it too, and for a moment he stared mournfully at the empty chair behind the desk.
Assuming she was probably ensconced with her boss, Monsieur Pamplemousse carried on across the room and tapped gently on the door to the Director’s inner sanctum. If the matter was urgent enough to warrant the use of Le Guide’s emergency codeword, there was no point in standing on ceremony.
Monsieur Leclercq must have been hovering on the other side, for the door swung open almost immediately.
Having first made sure his outer office was empty, he murmured something unintelligible and waved them in.
‘Pardon, Monsieur?’ Monsieur Pamplemousse cupped a hand over his ear.
‘Entrez,’ hissed the Director.
Trying to strike a jocular note, and mindful of Mr Pickering’s earlier anecdote, Monsieur Pamplemousse essayed a pleasantry in return: ‘Doctor Livingstone, I presume?’
Monsieur Leclercq gave a start. ‘Don’t tell me they have changed the code word already, Pamplemousse!’ he exclaimed.
It was Monsieur Pamplemousse’s turn to look confused.
‘They?’ he repeated
‘How much do you already know of what is going on?’ demanded the Director. ‘Have you been primed?’
‘I know a certain amount, Monsieur,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse cautiously. ‘I am not sure how much that is, compared with the whole, or even how much it is when viewed as being a part of the whole. I only know about those things that affect me personally. You must forgive me. I was wearing the English explorer Henry Morton Stanley’s hat for a moment. The one he was wearing on the banks of the Ujiji.’
‘The banks of the Ujiji?’ repeated Monsieur Leclercq. ‘Matters are worse than I feared. Do I know this Stanley person? Why was I not told about him? Who is he working for?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse considered his response with care. ‘Perhaps I should wait until Véronique returns to her office,’ he began. ‘In the circumstances, I thought …’
‘Alas!’ The Director calmed down. ‘Véronique is no longer with us,’ he said sombrely.
Monsieur Pamplemousse felt his blood run cold. ‘She isn’t …’
‘Dead?’ For a brief moment Monsieur Leclercq looked a broken man. ‘No, Aristide, it is worse than that I fear. Far, far worse.
‘At a time when I need a secretary more than ever, I have been left totally bereft! Véronique has walked out on me!’
CHAPTER THREE
&nb
sp; Monsieur Pamplemousse could hardly believe his ears. ‘Véronique has walked out on you, Monsieur?’ he repeated. It didn’t seem possible. ‘Has she gone for good?’
‘I sincerely hope not,’ said Monsieur Leclercq. ‘I don’t know what I would do without her. My hope is that her absence is merely the result of a temporary aberration. I put it down to the hot weather, of course, but she swept out without even so much as an au revoir or a quel dommage.
‘The simple truth is she objected to having her handbag searched when she came in to work this morning. When I insisted, she announced she was leaving before I inflicted on her the final indignity of carrying out a strip search. Something, I can assure you, Aristide, I had no intention of doing.’
‘With respect, Monsieur, perhaps you should have. Most women look on their sac à main as being private territory. In my experience it is a “no go” area. Many ladies I know would regard removing their clothes as being the lesser of two evils.’
‘That may be true in the kind of circles you frequent, Pamplemousse,’ said the Director, heading across the room towards his desk, ‘but it is certainly not the case in mine.’
While his back was turned Monsieur Pamplemousse couldn’t help but notice all the slatted blinds were drawn. He had never known such a thing to happen before. Monsieur Leclercq gained a great deal of pleasure from the panoramic view of Paris afforded by the enormous picture windows occupying three sides of his rooftop office. He was apt to spend much of his time gazing out at the world, or that part of it bounded by the périphérique; pinpointing the many restaurants whose names graced the pages of Le Guide, planning which ones might need a confirmatory visit. There was even a brass plate let into the stonework of the balcony wall indicating which establishments had been honoured with Stock Pot status.
Monsieur Pamplemousse also couldn’t help being aware of the fact that the single lamp on the Director’s desk had been turned to face the visitor’s chair. Surely he wasn’t about to be grilled?
