Last Ditch (12 page)

And at the back of his extreme distaste for this development, why was there an indefinable warmth, a latent pleasure? He wondered if perhaps an old loneliness had been, or looked to become, a little assuaged.

Ricky came back with the assurance that Mrs Ferrant was concocting a dish, the mere smell of which would cause the salivary glands of a hermit to spout like fountains.

‘She’s devoured by curiosity,’ he said. ‘About you. Why you’re here. What you do. Whether you’re cross with me. The lot. She’d winkle information out of a Trappist monk, that one would. I can’t wait.’

‘For what?’

‘For her to start on you.’

‘Rick,’ Alleyn said. ‘She’s Mrs Ferrant, and Ferrant, you tell me, is mysteriously affluent, goes in for solitary night-fishing, pays dressy visits to St Pierre-des-Roches and seems to be thick with Jones. With Jones who also visits there and goes to London carrying paint and who, since he’s found out your father is a cop, has taken a scunner to you. You think Jones dopes. So do I. Ferrant seems to have a bully’s ascendancy over Jones. One of them, you think, tried to murder you. It follows that you watch your step with Mrs Ferrant, don’t you agree?’

‘Yes. Of course. And I always have. Not because of any of that but because she’s so bloody insatiable. About the Pharamonds in particular. Especially about Louis.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes. And I’ll tell you what. I think when she was cooking or whatever she did up at L’Esperance, she had a romp on the side with Louis.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of the way he talks about her. The bedside manner. And – well, because of that kid.’

‘The Ferrant kid?’

‘That’s right. There’s a look. Unmistakable, I’d have thought. Dark and cheeky and a bit of a slyboots.’

‘Called?’

‘Wait for it.’

‘Louis?’ Ricky nodded.

‘It’s as common a French name as can be,’ said Alleyn.

‘Yes, of course,’ Ricky agreed, ‘and it’d be going altogether too far, one would think, wouldn’t one? To christen him that if Louis was –’ He made a dismissive gesture. ‘It’s probably just my dirty mind after all. And – well –’

‘You don’t like Louis Pharamond?’

‘Not much. Does it show?’

‘A bit.’

‘He was on that voyage when you met them, wasn’t he?’ Ricky asked. Alleyn nodded. ‘Did you like him?’

‘Not much.’

‘Good.’

‘Which signifies,” Alleyn said, ‘damn all.’

‘He had something going with Miss Harkness.’

‘For pity’s sake!’ Alleyn exclaimed. ‘How many more and why do you think so?’

Ricky described the incident on the cliffs. ‘It had been a rendezvous,’ he said rather importantly. ‘You could tell.’

‘I don’t quite see how when you say you were lying flat on your face behind a rock, but let that pass.’

Ricky tried not to grin. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I bet I’m right. He’s a prowler.’

‘Rick,’ Alleyn said after a pause, ‘I’m here on a sort of double job which is my Assistant Commissioner’s Machiavellian idea of econ-omy. I’m here because the local police are worried about the death of Dulcie Harkness and have asked us to nod in, and I’m also supposed in an off-hand, carefree manner to look into the possibility of this island being a penultimate station in one of the heroin routes into Great Britain.’

‘Lawks!’

‘Yes. Of course you’ve read about the ways the trade is run. Every kind of outlandish means of transit is employed – electric light-fittings, component parts for hearing aids, artificial limbs, fat men’s navels, anything hollow – you name it. If the thing’s going on here there’s got to be some way of getting the stuff out of Marseilles, where the con-version into heroin is effected, across to St Pierre, from there to the island and thence to the mainland. Anything suggest itself?’

‘Such as why did Jones cut up so rough when I trod on his paint?’

‘Go on.’

‘He does seem to make frequent trips – Hi!’ Ricky said, interrupting himself. ‘Would this mean Jerome et Cie were in it or that Jones was on his own?’

‘Probably the former, but it’s anyone’s guess.’

‘And Ferrant? The way he behaved with Syd at St Pierre. Could they be in cahoots? Is there anything on Ferrant?’

‘The narcotics boys say he’s being watched. Apparently he makes these pleasure trips rather often and has been known to fly down to Marseilles and the Cte d’Azur where he’s been seen hob-nobbing with recognized traders.’

‘But what’s he supposed to
do
?’

‘They’ve nothing definite. He may have the odd rendezvous on calm nights when he goes fishing. Suppose – and this is the wildest guesswork – but suppose a gentleman with similar propensities puts out from St Pierre with a consignment of artists’ paints. They’ve been opened at the bottom and capsules of heroin pushed up and filled in nice and tidy with paint. Then a certain amount is squeezed out at the top and the tubes messed about to look used. And in due course they go into Syd Jones’s paintbox among his rightful materials and he takes one of his trips over to London. The stuff he totes round to shops and artists’ studios is of course pure as pure. The Customs people have got used to him and his paintbox. They probably did their stuff at some early stages before he began to operate. Even now, if they got curious, the odds are they’d hit on the wrong tube. One would suppose he doesn’t distribute more than a mini-mum of the doctored jobs among his legitimate material. Of which the vermilion you put your great hoof on was one.’

Alleyn stopped. He looked at his son and saw a familiar glaze of incredulity and interest on his open countenance.

‘Don’t get it wrong,’ he said. ‘That may be all my eye. Mr Jones may be as pure as the driven snow. But if you can find another reason for him taking such a scunner to you, let’s have it. Rick, consider. You visit his pad and show an interest in his Jerome et Cie paint. A few days later you tread on his vermilion and try to pick up the tube. You send him to us and when he gets there he’s asked if he’s messing about with drugs. On top of that he learns that your pop’s a cop. He sets out on a business trip to headquarters and who does he find dodging about among the cargo? You, chummy. He’s rattled and lets fly, accusing you of the first offence he can think of that doesn’t bear any relation to his actual on-goings. And to put the lid on it you dog his footsteps almost to the very threshold of Messrs Jerome et Cie. And don’t forget, all this may be a farrago of utter nonsense.’

‘It adds up, I suppose. Or does it?’

‘If you know a better “ole” –’

‘What about Ferrant, then? Are they in cahoots over the drug racket?’

‘It could be. It looks a bit like it. And Ferrant it is who finds you – What exactly
were
you doing? Show me.’

‘Have a heart.’

‘Come on.’ Alleyn picked up a copy of yesterday’s
Times.
‘Show me.’ Ricky opened it and tore a hole in the centre fold. He then advanced his eye to the hole, screwed up his face and peered through.

Alleyn looked over the top of
The Times.
‘Boh!’ he said.

Mrs Ferrant came in.

‘Your bit of supper’s ready,’ she said, regarding them with surprise. ‘In the parlour.’

Self-conscious, they followed her downstairs.

The aroma – delicate, pervasive and yet discreet – welcomed them into the parlour. The dish, elegantly presented, was on the table. The final assembly had been completed, the garniture was in place. Mrs Ferrant, saucepan in hand, spooned the shell-fish sauce over hot fillets of sole.

‘My God!’ Alleyn exclaimed. ‘
Sole à la Dieppoise
!’

His success with the cook could only be compared with that of her masterpiece with him. Ricky observed, with mounting wonderment and small understanding, since the conversation was in French, the rapport his father instantly established with Mrs Ferrant. He questioned her about the sole, the shrimps, the mussels. In a matter of minutes he had elicited the information that Madame (as he was careful to call her) had a maman who actually came from Dieppe and from whom she inherited her art. He was about to send Ricky out at the gallop to purchase a bottle of white Burgundy, when Mrs Ferrant, a gratified smirk twitching at her lips, produced one. He kissed her hand and begged her to join them. She consented. Ricky’s eyes opened wider and wider.

As the strange little feast progressed he became at least partially tuned in. He gathered that his father had steered the conversation round to the Pharamonds and the days of her service up at L’Esperance. ‘Monsieur Louis’ came up once or twice. He was sophisticated. A very mondain type, was he not? One might say so, said Mrs Ferrant with a shrug. It was her turn to ask questions. Monsieur Alleyn was well acquainted with the family, for example? Not to say ‘well’. They had been fellow-passengers on an ocean voyage. Monsieur’s visit was unanticipated by his son, was it not? But entirely so. It had been pleasant to surprise him. So droll the expression, when he walked in. Jaw dropped, eyes bulging, Alleyn gave a lively imitation and slapped his son jovially on the shoulder.
Ah yes, for example, his black eye, Mrs Ferrant enquired, and switching to English asked Ricky what he’d been doing with himself, then, in St Pierre. Had he got into bad company? Ricky offered the fable of the iron stanchion. Her stewed prune eyes glittered and she said something in French that sounded like
à d’autres
: Ricky wondered whether it was the equivalent of ‘tell us another’.

‘You got yourself in a proper mess,’ she pointed out. ‘Dripping wet those things are in your rucksack.’

‘I got caught in the thunderstorm.’

‘Did it rain seaweed, then?’ asked Mrs Ferrant, and for the first time in their acquaintance gave out a cackle of amusement in which, to Ricky’s fury, his father joined.

‘
Ah, madame!
’ said Alleyn with a comradely look at Mrs Ferrant. ‘
Les jeunes hommes!
’

She nodded her head up and down. Ricky wondered what the hell she supposed he’d been up to.

The
sole à la Dieppoise
was followed by the lightest of sorbets, a cheese board, coffee and cognac.

‘I have not eaten so well,’ Alleyn said, ‘since I was last in Paris. You are superb, madame.’

The conversation proceeded bilingually and drifted round to Miss Harkness and what Alleyn, with, as his son felt, indecent understatement, referred to as
son contretemps équestre.

Mrs Ferrant put on an air of grandeur, of sombre loftiness. It had been unfortunate, she conceded. Miss Harkness’s awful face and sightless glare flashed up in Ricky’s remembrance.

She had perhaps been of a reckless disposition, Alleyn hinted. In more ways than one, Mrs Ferrant agreed, and sniffed very slightly.

‘By the way, Rick,’ Alleyn said. ‘Did I forget to say? Your Mr Jones called on us in London.’

‘Really?’ said Ricky, managing to sound surprised. ‘What on earth for? Selling Mummy his paints?’

‘Well – advertising them, shall we say. He showed your mother some of his work.’

‘What did she think?’

‘I’m afraid, not a great deal.’

It was Mrs Ferrant’s turn again. Was Mrs Alleyn, then, an artist? An artist of great distinction, perhaps? And Alleyn himself? He was
on holiday, no doubt? No, no, Alleyn said. It was a business trip. He would be staying in Montjoy for a few days but had taken the opportunity to visit his son. Quite a coincidence, was it not, that Ricky should be staying at the Cove. Lucky fellow! Alleyn cried, catching him another buffet and bowing at the empty dishes.

Mrs Ferrant didn’t in so many words ask Alleyn what his job was, but she came indecently close to it. Ricky wondered if his father would side-step the barrage, but no, he said cheerfully that he was a policeman. She offered a number of exclamations. She would never have dreamt of it! A policeman! In English she accused him of ‘having her on’, and in French of not being the type. It was all very vivacious and Ricky didn’t believe a word of it. His ideas on Mrs Ferrant were under-going a rapid transformation, due in part, he thought, to her command of French. He couldn’t follow much of what she said, but the sound of it lent a gloss of sophistication to her general demeanour. It put her into a new category. She had become more formidable. As for his father: it was as if some frisky stranger laughed and flattered and almost flirted. Was this The Cid? What were they talking about now? About Mr Ferrant and his trips to St Pierre and how he would never eat as well abroad as he did at home. He had business connections in France perhaps? No. Merely family ones. He liked to keep up with his aunts…

Ricky had had a long, painful and distracting day of it. Impossible to believe that only this morning he and Sydney Jones had leant nose-to-nose across a crate of fish on a pitching deck. And how odd those people looked, scuttling about so far below. Like woodlice. Awful to fall from the balcony among them. But he
was
falling: down, down into the disgusting sea.

‘Arrrach!’ he tried to shout, and looked into his father’s face and felt his hands on his shoulders. Mrs Ferrant had gone.

‘Come along, old son,’ Alleyn said, and his deep voice was very satisfactory. ‘Bed. Call it a day.’

Inspector Fox was discussing a pint of mild-and-bitter when Alleyn walked into the bar at the Cod-and-Bottle. He was engaged in dignified conversation with the landlord, three of the habituals and
Sergeant Plank. Alleyn saw that he was enjoying his usual success. They hung upon his words. His massive back was turned to the door and Alleyn approached him unobserved.

‘That’s where you hit the nail smack on the head, Sergeant,’ he was saying. ‘Calm, cool and collected. You’ve had the experience of working with him?’

‘Well,’ said Sergeant Plank, clearing his throat, ‘in a very subsidiary position, Mr Fox. But I remarked upon it.’

‘You remarked upon it. Exactly. So’ve I. For longer than you might think, Mr Maistre,’ said Fox, drawing the landlord into closer communion. ‘And a gratifying experience it’s been. However,’ said Mr Fox, who had suddenly become aware of Alleyn’s approach, ‘
Quoi qu’il en soit.
’

The islanders were bilingual, and Mr Fox never let slip an opportunity to practise his French or to brag, in a calm and stately manner, of the excellencies of his superior officer. It was seldom that Alleyn caught him at this exercise and when he did, he gave him fits. But that made little difference to Fox, who merely pointed out that the technique had proved a useful approach to establishing comfortable relations with persons from whom Alleyn hoped to obtain information.