Monsieur Pamplemousse and the French Solution by Bond Michael

Author:Bond, Michael [Michael Bond]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780749040536
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2011-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

It was hard to say who was the most taken aback; the person standing in the doorway, Monsieur Pamplemousse, or Pommes Frites, who couldn’t decide whether to wag his tail or not. In the end he left it at half mast.

During the split second it took the camera to readjust to the change of scene the new arrival paused and smiled directly into the lens.

Monsieur Pamplemousse instinctively zoomed in for a tighter shot. If nothing else, it was a good test of the camera’s ability to cope with all eventualities. Almost at once a pin sharp picture appeared on the screen.

Mentally awarding it ten out of ten, he pressed the shutter-release button fully home and, as he did so, he became aware of something odd about the person’s face, but by then it was too late.

The operation completed, he glanced up, and realised what had been bothering him. Although one of the subjects’s eyes had been staring straight towards the lens, the other was focused on Pommes Frites.

‘Buonasera, signorita,’ he said. ‘Mi chiamo Aristide Pamplemousse. E tu come ti Maria?’

Monsieur Leclercq was right about one thing: the eye nearest to him immediately lost its sparkle, effectively disposing of the girl’s knowledge of Italian and presumably with it, her so-called connections to the Vatican.

‘Good evening,’ he translated. ‘My name is Aristide Pamplemousse, and you must be Maria.’

‘How did you guess?’

The girl entered the room, and as she turned to close the door he seized the opportunity to carry out a quick survey.

Clearly, he was privileged to be taking part in an early viewing of the fruits of her shopping expedition with Monsieur Leclercq.

The knee-length white satin dress she was wearing would have brought about an impatient snort from Doucette had she come across it in one of her magazines. From the way it clung to her body it might have been made from some form of semi-transparent plastic film, more suited to a hot summer’s day on the promenade in Cannes than a winter evening in Paris. If it was ‘off the shelf’, then it must have been awaiting her arrival, for she filled it to perfection; a walking tribute to the art of haute couture.

A matching handbag and shoes completed the ensemble.

Monsieur Leclercq was right in one respect: the girl could fairly be described as being a pretty little thing, but having said that, his immediate reaction was he wouldn’t have trusted her any further than he could have thrown her, and given his present surroundings, that didn’t amount to much.

Her grey-green eyes were never still, darting here, there and everywhere; so much so, he wondered if the moments when they appeared to be out of synch with each other were simply a reflection of his own inability to keep up with the constant changes.

And yet … and yet … perhaps it was the overall whiteness, but she had that indefinable quality some women are born with; a kind of wide-eyed ‘please help me’ innocence that many men find hard to ignore, despite all the risks they know they are running.

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