Black Diamond - Martin Walker [59]
J-J’s eyes followed the women with admiration as they left under the stone arch of the stadium entrance.
“Two fine women,” said J-J. “And we’re off to an all-male evening. We must be mad.”
“If you’re coming, you’ll have to follow me home first. I’ve got to make the soup and pick up some supplies, and then we’ll head over to the baron’s place.”
“A small château, they tell me.”
“Very small. More of a chartreuse than a château. It looks imposing, but it’s only one room wide. Leave your car here. You can start reading out those names as we drive.”
“Let’s start with buying the wine,” said J-J. Bruno drove the short distance to the cave of Hubert de Montignac, a legendary place that sold individual bottles of wine for as much as three thousand euros but also dispensed local wine for little more than one euro a bottle from giant vats at the back of the store. Hubert himself came out from behind the counter to greet Bruno and usher the two men into his office that also served as a private tasting room.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Nathalie, rising from her desk and offering her cheeks to be kissed. “You’re limping.”
“Rugby,” Bruno explained and made the introductions. “You’ll be seeing Hubert at dinner tonight, so you should take his advice on what to bring,” he told J-J.
“Hercule loved his St. Emilion, and Château Angélus most of all,” Hubert said. “But nobody can afford to drink much of that these days. I’m taking a bottle of the eighty-five because I really liked the old guy, and he bought a lot of wine from me. I’d thought of taking a ninety-nine because when we tasted it at the time he was right and I wrong. I thought it wouldn’t last, and Hercule told me it would, and he bought a case. We drank a bottle the last time Nathalie and I saw him. I’ve got a couple left in the bin.”
“Let’s have them both, but I want to pay for them,” said J-J. “I’m a last-minute guest tonight.”
Hubert raised his eyebrows and exchanged glances with Nathalie. Bruno knew that as head of detectives, J-J’s salary was at least double and maybe three times his own. But two bottles of Angélus would be more than a week’s pay even for J-J. Nathalie shrugged, as if to say it was up to Hubert what he charged. Hubert said, “Give me two hundred and I’ll open them now and bring them along to the baron’s.”
“Not often that I pay that much for a bottle of wine,” said J-J as they settled back into Bruno’s vehicle. “But I suspect that if I hadn’t been coming to the dinner tonight I’d have paid a lot more.”
Bruno nodded, thinking it would have been a great deal more and asked to hear the names from Hercule’s phone list. Most of them were familiar to him, hunters or men from the truffle trade or the Ste. Alvère mairie. J-J ticked them off on his printout and stuffed it back into his briefcase as they rounded the bend at the top of the hill that led to Bruno’s cottage. Gigi was sitting by the first of the row of young white oaks that bordered the track.
“He recognizes the sound of the engine,” Bruno said proudly, greeting his dog. Pulling his sports bag from the rear seat, he led the way into his home.
“A policeman who doesn’t lock his own front door,” chided J-J. Bruno grinned to himself, and unlocked the one door in his house that was always firmly secured, the storage room where he kept his shotgun and the washing machine. He rinsed his mud-soaked rugby clothes in the old sink before stuffing them into the machine. He set it in motion and relocked the door.
“You have a choice,” he said to J-J. “Have a Ricard with me now while I make the soup and then join me in walking the dog in the dark, or take him out into the woods while there’s still some light and come back in half an hour.”
J-J made two Ricards as Bruno went out to his potager with a garden fork and came back to the outdoor tap to rinse the dirt from the turnips, leeks and potatoes. In the kitchen, he began peeling and chopping the vegetables and lit the gas under a big iron saucepan.