The Dave Bliss Quintet (12 page)

“Can you afford zhis?” questions Daisy at lunchtime, showing no hesitation as she pulls up a chair on the trendy terrace overlooking the Boulevard de la Croisette and the beautiful vista of the Baie de Cannes, with its yachts and islands shimmering in the midday heat.

Not me, he thinks, but John Smith and American Express can. “Sure thing,” he drawls.

“You really must have the
salade niçoise
on the
terrasse
of the Grand Bleu in Cannes,” Samantha insisted before he left England, her face warming in memory of a university soiree some years earlier.

Now seems like an ideal opportunity, and if the
salade niçoise
is taking its time neither of them notice, laughing at the French idioms Daisy is using in answer to Bliss's apparently light-hearted suggestion that, perhaps, not everything in paradise is as straightforward as it appears on the surface — hoping that by touching on the point he may get her to leak something about Johnson and his investments.

“All Frenchmen are very honest,” she starts, straightfaced, then cracks a little as she goes on. “Everything is, like you English say, on zhe straight and narrow — just like our roads.”

“But your roads are as crooked as … Oh. I get it.”

“No — not crooked,
Monsieur
, just a little twisty, perhaps. Now zhe roads of Corse, zhey are crooked.”

“So I understand,” he says, having studied a map of Corsica left by a previous tenant.

“Here we
roulons le fisc un peu
, but beating zhe taxman is just a sport. Everyone likes to cheat zhe system a little — don't you?”

Bliss is staying clear as he queries, “And … Morgan Johnson. Does he like to cheat the system?”

“
Bof
,” she says, shrugging. “
Peut-être —
perhaps. Most of zhe roads zhat lead foreigners here are more zhan a little kinky.”

It's a start, he thinks, checking his watch, wondering how long it takes to make a salad. Even lazy lunches have their limits and time is running out on theirs. Finally, more in concern than annoyance, he calls the waitress.

“
Pardon, Monsieur
,” she says with a drawn face. “Zhere has been a
catastrophe
in zhe kitchen.”

Thinking they may have run out of anchovies or some other ingredient, he queries, “A catastrophe?”

“
Oui
,” she says, then her face crumples as she admits, “It is zhe chef. He is
mort
.”

“I wonder if she means dead or murdered ...” Bliss breathes aloud, then leaps to his feet.

With the St. John Ambulance first aid manual running through his mind he rushes to the kitchen, with Daisy in his wake, and finds a moribund scene as waiters, porters, and sous-chefs stand in rigor, surrounding the huge body of the chef, flat on his back like a beached white whale. A bright crimson stain surrounds the spot where a large kitchen knife juts out of his chest, and Bliss's face sinks.

“Not again,” he groans, annoyed his prediction to Samantha could be coming true. People did keep getting murdered whenever he was involved, but this
has nothing to do with him, or the Johnson case — or does it?

Mentally putting on his policeman's cap he quickly runs through the sudden death procedures: protect the scene, preserve evidence — especially any possible weapon — detain potential witnesses and suspects … but he's overlooked something. He racks his brain for just a second before seizing on the missing task — the first task: establish death has occurred. Has anyone checked, he wonders, and asks Daisy to enquire of the surrounding crowd. The way the worried-faced workers inch away from the body is enough of an answer, and Bliss leaps to grab one of the big man's wrists.

Consternation turns to confusion as he drops the wrist and rips open the man's jacket. The knife falls away and clatters onto the ceramic floor, making several of the minions leap, and Bliss runs his eyes over the exposed blubbery chest but finds little more than a flesh wound.

“What the —” he starts, then his frown turns to the start of a smile as he raises his head to the adjacent stainless steel work table. “Can somebody help?” he calls, as he puts a hand over the barely bleeding nick, but they hang back in reverence of the great man. “It's all right,” he says, nodding to the table. “It's just beetroot juice.”

“He must've fainted and stabbed himself on the way to the floor,” he explains to Daisy as they take their seats on the terrace a few minutes later, the old chef on his way to the hospital for observation. “I can't believe no one checked his pulse.”

“Zhey were scared,” explains Daisy. “He is a very big man.”

“Enormous,” agrees Bliss.

But she laughs. “I mean important — big.”

“Oh. That too,” he sniggers, as a smart-suited man delivers their salads.

Their waiter turned out to be the general manager and embarrassed Bliss by the effusiveness of his attention. It wasn't as if he'd saved the chef's life. The man would have come around eventually, although, as Bliss joked to Daisy, his concern was that had he not stepped in, the staff would have had the old guy in a box and on his way to the cemetery.

“He would have lived,” she explained, detailing the French custom of attaching a graveside bell to a cord in a buried person's hand, but Bliss, laughing, wouldn't let her off the hook. “Maybe they would have cremated him in his own oven.”

Following lunch — on the house,
naturellement
— the manager pumps Bliss's hand furiously and insists that he and his beautiful wife — a
faux pas
Daisy doesn't feel obliged to rectify as she clings to Bliss's arm in admiration — should be his guests for dinner in the hotel's elegant dining room, La Scala.

“
C'est le coup de fusil
,” mutters Daisy, making it clear the price of dinner at La Scala is way out of her league.

“You must come on Sunday evening,” he commands, and Bliss doesn't argue.

Daisy, still holding tight, thanks him profusely on Bliss's behalf and assures him that Sunday will be absolutely “
parfait
.”

“
Oh là là
,” she says, mentally working on her outfit as the manager leaves them to their lunch. “It will be
magnifique — le tralala
,” she enthuses, then, catching
Bliss's critical eye, disarms him with a cheeky smile. “So — who else were you going to take?”

“My wife,” he starts, then sees her frown and gives in. “I'd be delighted to invite you, Daisy,” he says, bringing back the smile, though it is fairly obvious from her victorious look that the subject of etchings is going to come up, and he starts mentally preparing excuses.

The
salade niçoise
is everything Samantha cracked it up to be, and Bliss eats in anticipation of dinner.

“So,” he prods Daisy between bites, “what can you tell me about the Johnsons?”

It seems Daisy's knowledge of Johnson and his wife is limited to rumour, but, weighing off her allegiance to someone who can command a table at La Scala with a man who indirectly pays her wages, Bliss wins, and she sketches an image of a rake who has his fingers in any number of pies — and people.

“And he was in your office yesterday morning?” Bliss notes.

“
Oui, avec sa pépée
.”

“With his what?” he asks, thinking it sounds crude.

“His
pépée …
his
poule …
his
petite
girlfriend,” she sneers.

Daisy's obviously not a fan of Mr. Johnson, he deduces, but how far can he trust her? How can she help him?

“When Morgan Johnson is with his little
pépée
,” he asks, “what does Mrs. Johnson do?”

Daisy gives him a quizzical look. “Why you want to know?”

His first thought is to tell her he's writing an exposé of deviant sexual behaviour, but, worrying she might take it the wrong way and insist on a personal demonstration, he hesitates. Now what? Tell her about the man in the cage, perhaps. Why not? She seems to enjoy a little gossip. It'll make her day.

Daisy doesn't take him seriously at first. Raising her eyebrows in a smirk. “I zhink that is good idea. I zhink I might like also.”

“You might?” he exclaims.

“
Oui
,” she agrees, half-seriously. “Perhaps it will make him a good lover.”

In answer, Bliss puts on an accent. “But I zhought zhe French men were all Casanovas.”

“Casanovas,” she scoffs. “Zhe problem wiz zhe French men is zhey only want zhe one zhing.”

He hated asking, but did anyway.

“Food, of course,” she spits, in all seriousness, then gives him a quizzical look. “Oh. I see what you zhink. You zhink sex.”

“Sex,” he echoes, refusing to be drawn.

“
Bof!
You are like all men — ‘
Cocorico
,' you cry, ‘I am zhe big cock.' You zhink of sex; you talk of sex, but,
crac!
Always you would prefer
le beefsteak.
”

“
Crac!
” he laughs. “What is
crac
?”

“It is
rien
— nothing — it is just an expression we use, like
bof
,” she says, coming down a notch.

“
Bof
,” mocks Bliss lightly, but he's getting nowhere on the subject of the Johnsons, so he switches to Grimes and his disappearing act of the previous night.

Describing the property, though not the reason for his interest, Bliss asks Daisy what is, and who owns, the Château Roger. He can see by the look on her face that
she has a pretty good idea, but she clams up, claiming, “
Ce château est un panier de crabes.
”

“A basket of crabs?” he queries.

“
Oui.
And if you are wise you will keep your fingers out.”

An uncharacteristic sternness in her generally jovial tone warns him there is little point pushing his enquiry. Maybe she'll be more amenable after dinner at La Scala on Sunday evening, he decides, and at least it will keep her mind off etchings.

Jacques is back in his regular place at L'Escale Thursday evening, apparently feeling forty-eight hours is sufficient to clear up a case of obstinate wind, and Bliss has no interest in bringing up the controversial subject, but Jacques insists. “We are very lucky,” he explains. “Tomorrow will start zhe good winds.”

“I hadn't noticed the bad ones,” muses Bliss, but Jacques prefers not to hear as he continues, proudly, as if it were his doing. “Tomorrow, zhe wind will go northeast and zhe
gargali
will bring zhe warm airs and zhe sweet scent of zhe Tuscan olive groves.”

Daisy saves Bliss from comment by, just coincidentally, strolling along the promenade at that precise moment and catching his eye.

“Daisy — Jacques; Jacques — Daisy,” Bliss introduces, although from the wary eye they give each other, he assumes they've met. Then he orders drinks for all from Angeline, who has just skirted death for the third time since his arrival.

“
Les Anglais débarquent
,” mutters Jacques, making Daisy snigger, as Hugh, Mavis, Jennifer, and John
arrive, then squabble over the seats. “I wonder if zhey went to zhe beach today?”

“Did you get to the beach, Hugh?” pipes up Bliss, guessing by their continued pallidness that it's unlikely.

“The beach, old chap?” he responds as if giving himself thinking space. “Good Lord, no. Bit too hot, wasn't it, dear,” he adds, looking to Mavis for support. But Mavis has conveniently spotted something of great importance somewhere in the middle distance.

“We did think about it,” continues Hugh, realizing he's been abandoned by his stooge. “Didn't want to risk it. Cancer,” he mouths, nodding to Mavis, who is trying to point out the slightly unusual hue of an all-white seagull to Jennifer.

“Oh. I'm sorry. I'd no idea,” whispers Bliss.

Hugh's face screws in confusion for a second, then he catches on. “Oh no, dear boy. She hasn't got it. Well, not as far as we know. She just worries about getting it.”

“Yeah,” Bliss says, tongue in cheek. “I can understand that.”

The sarcasm flies over Hugh as he continues, “John and Jennifer went.”

“I can see that,” says Bliss.

“Oh well, there's always next year.”

“Good idea. Maybe the weather'll be more favourable then.”

“Possibly, dear boy,” says Hugh, studiously searching the clear moonlit sky for a clue. “Possibly.”

“So, why did you laugh when Jacques said the English have arrived?” he asks Daisy seriously after Jacques has left, telling them, in a manner of speaking, that he had other fish to fry. “
J'ai d'autres chats à fouetter
,” he explained.

“
Les Anglais débarquent —
the Engleesh have arrived — is what we say,” she giggles, “at zhe special time in zhe month for a woman.” Then she leans conspiratorially closer and adds, “Also, we call a condom an Engleesh cap —
une capote anglaise;
and
le vice anglais
is zhe homosexuality.”

“Thanks a lot,” says Bliss, facetiously, “I really needed to know all that.”

“Why you want to know about zhe château?” Daisy questions. The seriousness of her tone gives him the feeling that she may have tracked him down specifically to question him about his interest, but, he reasons, she is an estate agent — maybe the place is for sale.

“Researching for my book,” he tells her, guessing he won't earn enough in his lifetime to even put a deposit on such an enormous estate in its prestigious neighbourhood.

“You are writing a book?”

“Yes. That is what I do. I told you.”

Daisy softens in relief. She's evidently forgotten, and he's been so caught up in the Johnson case that he's written little during the week.