The Critic Read online

  Nicole sipped her coffee and munched on the chocolatine she had bought in a boulangerie across the square, and examined the map and the list of chambres d’hôtes she had acquired from the tourist office beside the abbey. There were dozens of them. The trick was going to be finding one close to Château des Fleurs, the cost of which would not send Monsieur Macleod into another fit of Scottish apoplexy. He could, she reflected, be seriously bad-tempered at times. She put it down to the lack of a woman in his life.

  She highlighted the Château des Fleurs on the map with a marker pen, then drew a circle around it with a radius of around two kilometres. Now she tried to match the place names within the circle with place names on the list.

  Her concentration was such that at first she didn’t notice the tugging at her shoes. When she did, she tutted with irritation and looked under the table. The brown puppy was pulling at the laces of her running shoes and had somehow managed to undo both of them. When Nicole’s head appeared beneath the level of the table it stopped, looking at her eagerly, as if for approval, but poised ready to back off if its achievement had the opposite effect. Nicole could not be angry. ‘You little devil!’ She reached down and ruffled its head, and it went springing delightedly around the table. She leaned over to retie her shoelaces.

  ‘Sorry about that. He’s been doing it all week.’

  She looked up to see the waiter grinning at her. He was a young lad, with a shock of dark, curly hair shaved close around the back and sides of his head. Nicole was aware of his brown eyes being drawn involuntarily to her cleavage then quickly, self-consciously away. ‘What, untying shoelaces?’

  He nodded. ‘It’s a trick he’s learned. Some of our customers are less tolerant of him than you. He’s only narrowly avoided the toe-end of a few boots.’

  ‘So who taught him the trick? You?’

  The boy laughed. ‘No, he’s not mine. Or anybody’s, I don’t think. Probably too many pups in a litter, and he’s been dropped out the back door of a car somewhere. At any rate, he seems to have adopted us. We call him Braucol.’ The pup heard the familiar sound of his name and danced around the waiter’s feet, trying to grab a shoelace. The boy nudged him away with his toe.

  ‘Braucol?’

  ‘It’s a local red grape, one of the cépages that gives the Gaillac wine its distinctive flavour.’

  ‘Braucol.’ Nicole repeated the name, trying it out for size. ‘I like it. It suits him.’ She felt a tugging at her feet and looked down to see that her newly retied shoelaces had been undone again. Braucol went prancing off to a safe distance, eyes wide, watching for her reaction.

  The waiter laughed. ‘He’s going to be a big one, too. Trouble is, the boss is fed up with him already. If he makes an official complaint, the municipality will have to take him away, and he’ll probably get put down. You don’t want a puppy, do you?’

  Nicole gave a little Gallic shrug of regret. ‘I would if I could, but I can’t.’

  A couple sat down at an adjoining table, and the waiter went off to take their order. Nicole retied her laces for the second time and wagged a finger of admonishment at the watching Braucol. ‘Go,’ she said. ‘If you hang around here you’ll just end up in that big kennel in the sky.’

  As if he understood her, Braucol went springing off, chasing after the wheels of a passing pram, and Nicole returned to her list and her map. Almost immediately, she spotted a chambre d’hôte on a farm that lay virtually next door to the Château des Fleurs estate. She drew a circle around the name, La Croix Blanche, and looked around for the waiter to ask if she could use their phone. But even as she caught his eye, she felt a tugging at her shoes. ‘Braucol!’ she hissed under the table in admonishment. The puppy lifted his eyebrows and seemed to smile, as if happy that she knew his name.

  ***

  She turned her car off the narrow country road into the entrance to La Domaine de la Croix Blanche, past the small, white cross that gave the place its name. Countless rows of vines stretched away across the valley, rising up across chalk hills towards an old church commanding unparalleled views over the right bank of the Tarn. A mechanical harvester sat silent on a stony track, and there wasn’t a soul moving amongst the vines in the midday sun.

  Mature oaks cast their shadows across the drive towards the pale green shutters of what must once have been the original farmhouse. Now, it seemed, it was only used for storage, and a tasting room had been fashioned from the garage at the end of it. Washing hung listlessly in the heat, on a rope strung between the trees, and there were cars parked in the glare of a drive of crushed castine chippings.

  Nicole left her suitcase in the trunk of her car and walked up the drive to the modern two-story house that had been built to replace the original farmhouse. The door of the cave lay ajar, and she could hear the sound of voices raised in animated conversation coming from within.

  She stopped at the open door, and saw, in the cool, dark interior of the cellar, a dozen people or more sitting around a long table, eating starters of crudités served from large stainless steel platters. There were several open bottles of wine on the table. Conversation fizzled out as the diners became aware of Nicole in the doorway. A young man glanced around, before reluctantly leaving his place to come to the door. He was a big man, in shorts and a torn tee-shirt, with thick, strong arms and calves like rugby balls. He had a tangle of dark, curly hair above a round face shining with perspiration and big eyes that seemed to Nicole to be almost black. She thought he was probably in his early thirties and that he was really quite handsome.

  He stepped out into the sunshine, pulling the door closed behind him. He gave a short, sharp, upward flick of his head, one eyebrow raised in query. ‘Can I help you?’ But he didn’t sound as if he wanted to, and Nicole quickly found herself reappraising her initial impression of him as handsome. He steadfastly avoided looking at her breasts.

  ‘I called earlier. About the chambre d’hôte.’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ He leaned back into the doorway. ‘Maman! It’s the girl about the room.’

  Maman turned out to be a formidable old lady with sharp, suspicious eyes. Unlike her son, she was tiny, birdlike, and had a voice that could cut paper. She led Nicole upstairs to a landing of faded floral wallpaper, and a door off it leading to a small bedroom with shutters closed tight against the hot September sun. The young man followed them in and hefted Nicole’s suitcase on to the bed with no apparent effort. The room seemed crowded with the three of them in it and so dark Nicole could only just make out the old framed family photographs on the wall. The inside of the door had the same floral wallpaper on it as the hall outside. Her immediate sense was one of depression. She had spent the last two months sitting in a darkened room at her mother’s bedside, and her impulse was to open the windows and throw the shutters wide, letting life flood in. But she resisted the urge. ‘This’ll be fine.’

  ‘We’ve never had any complaints,’ Maman said.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ The young man spoke to her for the first time since greeting her at the door of the cave.

  ‘No.’

  He looked at his mother. ‘There’s enough for one more, isn’t there?’

  His mother shrugged. ‘I suppose.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Nicole said. And she stuck out a hand towards him. ‘My name’s Nicole.’

  He seemed suddenly embarrassed. ‘Fabien.’ He took her hand with reluctance, and it felt huge and rough, and she saw his eyes glance fleetingly towards her cleavage. Perhaps he wasn’t so rude after all. Just shy, maybe.

  His mother watched her with patent disapproval. ‘Do you want to eat or not?’

  ***

  A hush descended for a moment over the gathering at the table when Fabien and his mother returned with the girl who’d appeared briefly at the door a few minutes earlier.

  Nicole found a free seat at the far end, beside an old man whom everyone called Pappy, and who had none of Fabien’s inhibitions about l
etting his eyes wander at will. He had a face as sharp as a blade, and fine, muscled arms exposed by a grape-stained sports vest. ‘Come to pick grapes with us, madamoiselle?’ he asked.

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘On holiday, then?’ This from a ruddy-faced man across the table who poured her a glass of wine.

  ‘No, my boss is staying in a gîte at the Château des Fleurs. He’s the one going grape-picking. Sort of under cover. He’s here to investigate the death of the wine critic, you know, the American, Gil Petty?’

  A silence you could touch fell across the table, and Nicole wondered what she had said wrong. All eyes were turned towards her.

  ‘Grape picking where?’ Fabien said.

  Nicole was beginning to think it had been a mistake to say anything at all. But having started, she could hardly stop now. She said, with a lightness she did not feel, ‘The vineyard where the body was discovered. He starts tomorrow.’ She glanced anxiously around all the faces turned towards her. ‘Do you know it?’

  The long silence that followed was finally broken by Fabien, whose dark look was reflected in the ominous tone of his voice. ‘We do. It’s here. La Croix Blanche.’ He paused. ‘And you can tell your boss he needn’t bother turning up tomorrow.’

  Chapter Five

  I.

  Enzo guided his 2CV through a narrow archway, to the front of a house built in the style of a Spanish hacienda. Steps led up through a garden of small trees and potted plants to double glass doors opening into a cool reception hall. Wisteria, long past its season of tearful, violet bloom, grew gnarled and twisted around the doorway, and vivid red geraniums overflowed from their bacs à fleurs to discourage mosquitoes. Beyond the house, a roof sloped steeply over the entrance to a darkened tasting room, and huge windows gave on the chai, where men were at work pumping freshly pressed must into stainless steel cuves.

  Opposite the house, on a terrasse shaded by ancient oak trees, a white table and chairs looked out over a retaining wall to the valley below, fields of golden stubble shimmering off into a hazy distance. An old man in dark blue overalls and a chequered shirt sat in the shadow of the trees, the remains of a meal on the table in front of him, a nearly empty glass in his hand, a nearly empty bottle just within reach. He seemed lost in contemplation, and only turned as Enzo shut the car door and started towards him.

  ‘I’m looking for Jean-Marc Josse,’ Enzo said.

  The old man grunted. ‘Then you’ve found him.’ His round face was covered with a fine, silver stubble, and in spite of nearly having finished a bottle of wine, his eyes were sharp and bright. ‘Who wants him?’

  ‘My name’s Enzo Macleod.’ Enzo held out a hand, and the old man reluctantly let go of his glass to shake it.

  ‘What kind of a name’s that?’

  ‘Half Italian, half Scottish.’

  ‘You’re not English, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sound English.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  The old man thrust out his jaw. ‘That’s alright, then. You’d better sit down.’

  Enzo pulled up a chair and seated himself opposite, placing his hands carefully on the table in front of him. In France it was considered bad manners to hide your hands from view, in your lap or below the table. A hangover, perhaps, from the days when a hidden hand might have held a weapon.

  ‘So what can I do for you, monsieur?’

  ‘I’m investigating the death of Gil Petty, and I wanted to talk to you about the l’ Ordre de la Dive Bouteille.’

  Jean-Marc Josse’s face darkened. ‘A damnable affair. Left a stain on the Ordre as impossible to remove as red wine on white silk. I wish he’d never come here.’

  ‘You made him a chevalier of the Ordre.’

  ‘He was the most influential wine critic in the world. The aim of our organisation is to promote the richness and diversity of the wines of Gaillac. Who better to make a chevalier?’

  ‘So you invited him.’

  ‘We invited him to apply.’

  ‘And what does an application entail?’

  ‘A letter asking to be inducted into the confrérie, and a complete curriculum vitae, leaving nothing out. To be accepted, you must reveal absolutely everything about yourself.’ He rubbed his stubble thoughtfully with the flat of a big hand. ‘You know, there are more than two thousand chevaliers around the world.’

  Enzo nodded and became aware of the hum of insects that filled the air around them. A slight breeze stirred the leaves above their heads and dappled sunlight danced across the table, a kaleidoscope of flickering light. ‘Do you take photographs at these induction ceremonies?’

  ‘Of course. Do you want to see them?’ The old man’s pride in his organisation was overcoming his initial reticence.

  ‘I’d like that. Thank you.’

  Jean-Marc Josse eased himself out of his seat, stretching stiffened limbs and headed off into the house with a slow, shuffling gait. He emerged some minutes later with a huge, hard-backed photo album, a thick manila file, and a bottle of red wine. ‘Have you tried our Mas Caussé reds?’ He dumped the album in front of Enzo, laid down his folder, and began opening the bottle.

  ‘I can’t say I have.’

  ‘This is our classic,’ the old man said. ‘Forty percent braucol, forty percent duras, and ten percent each of merlot and syrah to soften it.’

  ‘Aged in oak?’

  ‘Good God, no!’ Old Josse was shocked. ‘I don’t believe in oak. I want to taste the grape. Too many winemakers these days hide their shortcomings behind the big, buttery flavours they get from aging the stuff in oak barrels. With the Mas Caussé you taste the real thing. If we’ve made a bad wine, you’ll know it.’

  He poured a small quantity into his own glass and took out another from the deep pockets of his overalls to pour a little for Enzo. Enzo watched, and followed suit, as the old winemaker held his glass up to the light, then peered into it before putting his nose almost entirely inside and breathing deeply.

  ‘Powdered sugar,’ he said. ‘Raspberry.’

  Enzo nodded. He could see what the old man meant, but perhaps his nose was not as well developed. It certainly wasn’t as big.

  Now the old man swirled his glass and breathed it in again. ‘Big fruit. Plums. And the raspberry’s still there.’ Then he took a mouthful, sucking air over his tongue as slowly he let the wine slip back over his throat.

  Raspberry and liquorice were the overwhelming flavours that filled Enzo’s mouth. The wine was freshly acidic, not too heavy, and with a peppery taste that lingered pleasantly in the nasal cavity. ‘Very nice,’ he said, and the old man lifted an eyebrow as if Enzo had just damned his wine with faint praise.

  Enzo opened the photo album. Its pages were filled with large, colourful prints that had been pasted on either side. Men and women in flowing crimson gowns edged in black. Jean-Marc Josse with his tri-pointed red Rabelaisian hat, brandishing a piece of gnarled and polished vine root that served as an induction rod. Intronisation into the confrérie was symbolised by the presentation of a gold-coloured representation of an amphora, the Greek urn in which Gaillac wines were originally stored and sold. This came in the form of a chunky medallion hung around the neck on a gold rope.

  He flipped over a page, and there was Petty: a maroon apron over a red jacket, Josse hanging the amphora around his neck. Petty, Enzo knew, had been almost exactly the same age as himself, but he seemed much older. He was much more conservative, with his short cut, dyed black hair, a little silver left at the temples in an attempt to deceive the world into believing this was his natural colour. There were few things more unedifying than a man who dyed his hair and pretended not to.

  Petty had been a private man, but vain. Biographers had found it hard to get background information about him. Most of their research material had come from his ex-wife and former friends. It was something Enzo had noticed in almost everything he had read. Petty seemed only to have forme
r friends. In the end, it appeared, he had been a lonely and introverted soul, estranged from his family, never giving interviews, and turning up only rarely at public events.

  The induction in the photograph was held in a place with tiled floors and vaulted brick arches. ‘Where is this?’ Enzo asked.

  ‘The vaults of the Abbey Saint-Michel. It’s where we hold our chapters and many of our inductions.’ Old Josse filled both their glasses, then held his up to contemplate the wine. ‘Hard to believe that the vine started life as a forest creeper, climbing tree trunks, twenty, thirty metres, to reach the canopy. The fruit was for the birds, to carry the seeds off to germinate elsewhere. It’s the great thing about Man, you know, that he can shape and bend nature to his will, cut a thirty-metre creeper down to a metre and a half and make it produce fruit to his specifications. And then turn it into something as wonderful as this.’ He took a mouthful. His concentration was intense as he extracted every last moment of pleasure from the wine. Then he beamed, sharp eyes a little less sharp than before, his diction a little more slurred. He looked at Enzo. ‘Who exactly are you, Monsieur Macleod?’

  Enzo told him, and Josse thought briefly before taking a sheet of paper from his folder and slipping it across the table. Enzo picked it up. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Terms and conditions. If you want to apply to become a chevalier.’

  Enzo glanced at the sheet. ‘Don’t I have to be someone who’s done something to promote or advance the wines of Gaillac?’

  ‘Monsieur, if you can find out who murdered Petty and put this thing to rest once and for all, you’ll have done more for the wines of Gaillac than Petty ever did.’ He took another mouthful of dark, seductive red, sunlight slanting through his glass to illuminate its limpidity. ‘I love this place. I love the wines we make. My father made wine here before me, and now it’s my son who’s the maître du chai. There’s poetry in the grape, you know. The essence of Man, of civilisation, of sophistication. We’ve done all manner of things. We have circumnavigated the globe, sent spaceships to Mars. But there’s no higher achievement than the making of a fine wine, no greater pleasure than to drink it.’