Extraordinary People by Peter May

Author:Peter May [May, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General
ISBN: 9781590587690
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2007-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

II.

Hautvillers nestled in a cleft of the hillside, surrounded by trees and looking out across endless miles of vineyards. They passed the Moët et Chandon factory at the foot of the hill as they turned off the main road and drove through the early morning sunshine up towards the village.

Charlotte had been gone when Enzo wakened, leaving only her scent, and the impression in the pillow where her head had lain. He found evidence in the bathroom that she had taken a shower before she left. He could not believe that he had slept through it. When he got downstairs, he found Raffin and Charlotte having breakfast. She greeted him with a subdued bonjour and a perfunctory kiss on each cheek. There was not the slightest hint of acknowledgement in her eyes of what had passed between them the previous night. Raffin offered him a cursory handshake, and was reserved all through coffee and croissants. The three of them drove out to Hautvillers in silence.

The village was already filling with tourists, who were arriving by the coach load. Enzo found a parking place just off the Place de la République, and he and Raffin waited while Charlotte went into the tourist office. She emerged with a map and a handful of leaflets. Raffin took the map and led them along the Rue Henri Martin in the direction of the abbey. As they walked, Charlotte flicked through her leaflets. ‘You know, this place is pretty old. The village was founded in the year 658. It’s supposed to be the birthplace of champagne. It says here that the méthode champenoise was invented at the abbey of Hautvillers more than three hundred years ago by the Benedictine monk Dom Perignon.’

‘Actually,’ Enzo said, ‘they’d been making sparkling wine in the south of France for a hundred years before that.’

Raffin glanced at him curiously. ‘How do you know that?’

Enzo raised his shoulders casually. ‘I have a friend who knows these things,’ he said, and felt a twinge of shame. The thought that he had been premature in his judgment of Bertrand had haunted him through all the long drive north.

‘My God….’ Charlotte still had her nose buried in the leaflets. ‘Did you know that all the major champagne houses have their caves down in Épernay? Well, actually, down below Épernay. According to this, over the last three hundred years, they’ve dug a hundred and twenty kilometers of tunnels out of the chalk under the town, and there’s more than two hundred million bottles of champagne stored down there.’ She looked up, her eyes shining. ‘Two hundred million bottles!’

‘That’s a lot of bubbles,’ Enzo said.

Everywhere they looked there were makers and sellers of champagne. Gobillard, Tribaut, Locret-Lachaud, Lopez Martin, Raoul Collet, Bliard. At the Square Beaulieu, they turned into the Rue de l’Église, and climbed the hill, past the walled garden of the priest’s house, to a mosaic path of polished and unpolished granite leading to the back of the nave. The side door of the abbey stood ajar beneath the steeply pitched roof of a stone porch.

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