Enzo Files 02 - A Vintage Corpse aka The Critic by May Peter

Author:May, Peter [Peter, May,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General
ISBN: 9781615951246
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2007-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

III.

From the lab, in its tiny, hidden square in the heart of the old town, Enzo walked through to the Église Saint-Pierre. The repeating pattern of arches in an elaborate stone doorway were reflected in the redbrick architecture of its towering façade. Coloured fragments of sunlight, glimpsed beyond the half-open door, fell in through stained-glass windows to cast light in the gloom of its vast, echoing interior. But Enzo did not go inside. Neither prayer nor confession were high on his list of priorities.

He turned left into the Rue Portal and followed the narrow, cobbled street up between oddly canted apartments to the big, leafy Place de la Liberation, where sunlight danced in the shade of tall chestnuts whose leaves were stirred by a light wind. All along its length, old people sat on benches watching leaves fall and time slip away.

Sophie and Bertrand were sitting at a table outside the Grand Café des Sports with Nicole, Michelle, and Charlotte. As soon as he joined them, Enzo became aware of an unspoken tension between Charlotte and Michelle—aware, too, that he was probably the cause of it. He was neither flattered nor pleased by the thought, reflecting only that his life would be much less complicated if there were fewer women in it. Sophie was being extra bright in an attempt to gloss over the discordant atmosphere.

‘We went to the Maison du Vin,’ she said. ‘They’ve got an amazing tasting room down in the cellars of the old abbé. Rows and rows of sinks for spitting your wine into.’

Nicole humphed. ‘A waste of good wine.’

Sophie ignored her. ‘Trouble is, Papa, we’re out of season now, and they’re only doing tasting classes on Thursday nights.’ She delved into her bag. ‘But we got these.’ And she produced a sheaf of photocopied documents. ‘Les étapes de la dégustation. Everything you need to know about tasting wine.’ She thrust them at her father, and he flicked through sheets of paper with illustrations of wine glasses being looked at, sniffed, swirled, and quaffed. La vue. La nez. Le goût. There was a list of colour nuances for red, white, and rosé wine, categories of smells and tastes, an illustration of the human tongue with its clusters of taste buds capable of distinguishing everything from sweet to acid to salty to bitter.

‘And I used to think wine was easy,’ he said. ‘You drank it, and you liked it. Or you didn’t.’

‘There’s much more to it than that, Monsieur Macleod,’ Bertrand said earnestly. ‘It’s full of subtlety and variety. And once you’ve trained your palate, you know, there’s no going back. Drinking wine will never be the same again.’

‘Hmmmph.’ Enzo was not convinced. He felt something tugging at his feet. ‘What the hell…?’ He looked under the table in time to see a brown puppy dog pulling at his laces before dancing away across the pavement.’

Nicole laughed. ‘It’s just Braucol. Shoelaces are his party trick. We’ve been watching him go round all the tables.’

‘Braucol?’

‘Yeah, that’s what they’ve christened him here.

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