Dying on the Vine (6 page)

“We could start by having lunch.”

She hesitated but then she said, “No, I can't,” adding quickly, “perhaps another time. Where are you staying?”

I told her. She took a card and a pen from her bag, crossed out the name, which was that of her hairdresser she said, and wrote her name and phone number on the back.

“I'm Veronique,” she said, and the faintest of smiles crinkled her mouth.

“Let's keep in touch,” I said. She nodded and walked off. I watched her trim figure as she picked her way through the scrubby undergrowth. I had gained an ally at least, I thought, but she wasn't telling me all she knew and probably little of what she suspected.

Did she really believe that Edouard Morel might be dead? Or suspect?

Or know?

I
DROVE INTO SAINT
Symphorien and parked in the busy main square. A solitary official was engaged in a casual endeavor to see that shoppers and visitors did not park in impossible places but he was spending more time in public relations, chatting with mothers about their children and debating with three grizzled old-timers Olympic Marseille's chances in the European Soccer Cup.

It was a typically Provençal scene. The Romanesque church had a severe front and pockmarked walls from countless sieges and battles. Behind it, the ruins of the old castle thrust jagged stone teeth into the air. Shops and stores surrounded the square and busy bargain hunters sought out the plumpest chickens, the most glistening tomatoes, and cheeses so powerfully endowed that they overcame all the other smells—of which Saint Symphorien had its full complement.

On one corner of the square, the pharmacy had a massive chart in the window showing color pictures of mushrooms and carefully identifying the poisonous ones. Next door was a patisserie with a toothsome array of chocolate cakes, pies, and biscuits in the small window. Next to it was a bar-restaurant, La Colombe, and the menu outside promised a modestly priced meal prepared with all fresh ingredients, so I went in.

On one side was a bar, a “zinc” as they are still known, though no longer covered with a galvanized sheet. Behind it, the wall was covered with gaily labeled bottles and a mirror that was yellowing with age. Three elderly men in working clothes were drinking an early lunch and arguing loudly about a television soap. Farther along, a man sat at the bar alone, hunched over his drink.

A dozen tables, mostly empty, were covered with red and white tablecloths and set for meals. I chose one and studied the menu. It offered a good selection of simple and popular country-style dishes and I decided on the grilled red and green peppers with anchovies to start and the gambas flambéd with cognac as the main course. Provence wines are non-vintage and many are of mediocre quality, but most are very drinkable. I chose a white wine that I knew, the Château Sainte Roseline from a vineyard in Les Arcs-sur-Argens, as there were no wines from Willesford or Peregrine listed.

As the waitress took my order I noticed the man at the end of the bar looking at me as if he knew me. There was something vaguely familiar about him. I could see him better now and I remembered him from Gerard's office.

Anyone connected with either vineyard in any way was a potential source of information and I gave the man a nod and a smile by way of encouragement. He nodded back and I waved a hand to the other place setting at my table.

After the briefest of hesitations, he picked up his stein of beer and came over. I introduced myself.

“Elwyn Fox,” he said. “Didn't I see you at the vineyard?”

He spoke in English and I replied in the same language. “You did. Have a seat.”

He put down his stein and settled himself carefully into the chair. He was a big man, and he had a ponderous way of moving that made him seem even bigger. The dark brown leather windbreaker added to the effect of size just as his puffy, weather-beaten face and unruly brown hair probably made him look older than he was.

“I'm writing a series of articles on vineyards in the south of France under British ownership,” I said to get the conversational ball rolling. “The Willesford vineyard is one of the first and I went to talk to Gerard to get his viewpoint on his neighbors.”

“Is that a fact,” he murmured. “Well, now, ye couldn't have chosen a better man to do that. Gerard is a very nice chap and knows as much about wine and how to make it as anybody in the district.”

He had a singsong accent and a soft-spoken voice.

“You're Welsh,” I said.

“That I am,” he agreed. “Born in Llangollen. My mother was born there too. My father was a Cherokee Indian. His name was Running Fox but he changed it to Ronald Fox to suit the purposes of civilized bureaucracy.”

He had the singsong intonation typical of Wales. “So ye're writing about the vineyard here.” He said it as if he didn't believe it for a second.

I tried to ignore that impression as I said promptly, “Yes and I must say I didn't expect to find a dead body as soon as I got here.”

“Emil.” He said the name without emphasis.

“Yes, poor chap,” he went on, “many's the drink I've had with him in here … and other places.”

He drained his stein as the waitress approached with my bottle of wine and I invited him to have another beer. The waitress took his glass almost before he had nodded agreement. She evidently knew his habits.

“Cherokee and Welsh—that's an unusual heritage.”

“It is indeed. My father was with the Wild West part of a traveling circus. He was getting tired of the continual moving and Llangollen struck him as a place to settle. He met my mother and they were married in a month.”

“You work at the vineyard?”

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

The waitress set another liter stein of beer in front of him and he took a few swallows from it before answering. “I'm a dowser.”

“A what?”

“A dowser. It's a sort of gift really. You see, my father was the son of a medicine man, a shaman they call them. He had some gifts himself but he didn't like to use them. They made him feel different and he didn't like that. That's why he joined the circus and confined his tricks to riding horses bareback, shooting a bow and arrow, that kind of thing. My mother—now she was the real thing. …”

This was a strange man with a strange story. Why on earth did a vineyard want a dowser?

“You say you have these gifts. Do you have any thoughts about Emil's death?”

He shifted his bulk in the chair. He was like a big shaggy brown bear.

“I don't know a thing about it,” he said softly. “Anyway, you came here to write about vineyards, didn't you?”

“I found the body,” I said defensively. “That's why I'm interested. My first day here and I find a dead body.”

“He wasn't dead when you found him,” he said quietly.

“Yes, he was. Jean-Jacques said Emil wasn't dead when
he
found him.”

“Ah,” he said without expression.

The waitress evidently knew the timing of his drinking and came over with an inviting look. He nodded and she went back to the bar.

“How long do you expect to be here?” I asked conversationally.

“Don't know. Till the job's finished, I suppose.”

“At least Gerard must be a nice guy to work for.” I was probing and not with any success.

“Don't have a lot to do with him. We have a little chat now and then, that's about all.”

Now that he had started, he didn't seem reluctant to talk, and I watched him take another swig from the stein before he continued.

“My mother was the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. She was a seer just as her mother was a seer.”

“It's a person who has second sight, isn't it?”

“Aye, some people call it that. She could see things that others couldn't—she knew things … she warned about the fire in the colliery at Festiniog a week before it happened. Fools wouldn't listen to her and thirty men died. They listened to her afterwards though. People would come and ask her things … when little Megan Evans wandered off and got lost, my mother could
see
what Meg was seeing and it was from that that they found her.”

He paused to drain the stein and I asked, “And you've inherited these gifts from both your parents?”

He nodded. “That's why I'm a dowser.”

I couldn't keep the querying note out of my voice as I said, “You're dowsing at the Peregrine vineyard?”

“That's right.”

I drank some wine. It was light and fresh, just the way I remembered it.

“That's the truth. The last job was in Spain—a godforsaken spot in the south. It was too far away from the Mediterranean coast and not near any cities. Some German builders wanted to put up a big housing development but they were fighting with the authorities—not greasing the right palms, I imagine. There was no early prospect of running in water mains so they wanted me to find out where they had to dig wells and see how deep they'd have to be.” He shuddered. “Terrible job that was.”

“Did you find water?”

“I always find it if it's there.”

“Having any luck here?”

The waitress came, his beer in one hand and my peppers and anchovies in the other. He took a long draft. “It takes a while sometimes.”

Red and green peppers with anchovies is a dish that is particularly Provençal. It carries the flavor of the terrain, full of light and sunshine.

“Care to join me in some lunch?” I invited.

He looked dubiously at my plate. “No, thanks, not now. Might eat later.”

I was aware of someone at my shoulder and looked up.

It was Lewis Arundel, the sardonic Englishman from the Willesford vineyard. He smiled a wry, lopsided half smile at both of us. The nod that he and Elwyn Fox exchanged suggested that they knew each other well. The waitress came with a stein of beer for him. I motioned to a chair and he sat down with us. Apparently the two of them were regular drinking partners.

“How's the investigation going?” Arundel asked me.

“Y
OU'D KNOW MORE ABOUT
that than I would,” I told him. “I believe the police have spent a lot of time there at the vineyard.”

“Poking and prying. Asking silly and unnecessary questions.”

“Have they reached any conclusions?”

“The wild boar theory seems to be holding.”

I decided that his bored tone was normal and natural to him, not confined to this conversation.

He glanced slyly at the Welshman. “Pity your supernatural powers don't stretch beyond dowsing. You might be able to help the police find out exactly what happened.”

“Emil was gored by a wild boar,” Fox said and took another large swallow of beer.

“I knew that there are sangliers here in Provence but I didn't realize they were this dangerous,” I said, keeping the conversational focus on this point.

I looked at Arundel. “You've been here a long time, haven't you?”

“Two and a half years.”

“Heard of any sanglier deaths in that time?”

“You hear warnings on Riviera Radio when it's the mating season. Somebody must think they're dangerous.”

“But they don't usually come so close to human habitation, do they?”

Arundel gave me one of his supercilious looks. “Going to write an article on sangliers too, are you?”

I hadn't thought of that as an additional cover story but I accepted the contribution gratefully. “I was thinking one of the English sporting magazines might be able to use it. There's a hazardous angle that would be novel to readers in the UK.”

Arundel grunted. “Better be careful asking questions. You're under suspicion already, you know.”

Fox looked at him sharply. So did I.

“Suspicion?” I said. “Of what?”

Arundel drank beer, slowly, savoring the moment. “Some people believe that you are not what you seem.”

I laughed nonchalantly. I hoped it came out that way. “Me? Not a journalist? Then what am I?”

Fox was taking all this in, his eyes flickering from Arundel to me and back like a spectator at a tennis match.

“There are those …”—Arundel said slowly and with a deliberate pause—“who think that you're here to scout out the land for the homes.”

“Homes?” I certainly must have looked innocent of this charge. “What homes?”

Arundel drank more beer, keeping me in suspense as long as he could. It was Fox who answered. “There's a story going through the village that a colony of retirement homes is going to be built somewhere near here.”

“And they think I'm connected? That's ridiculous,” I said firmly. “I came here to do a story, that's all. Naturally, I'm always looking for new ideas.”

Arundel looked at me with that same arrogant stare. Fox said nothing.

The waitress came with my gambas at that moment and the flambéing operation at the table proved to be a convenient hiatus. We all watched the flames flicker and die.

“Bon appetit,” said Fox ritually.

“I must be off,” Arundel said. He threw some coins on the table, drained his beer, and left.

Fox watched me start eating. “Okay are they?”

“The gambas? Yes, fine.”

“They're pretty good here,” he said conversationally. “They use fresh stuff—well, not all the time but mostly.”

“No excuse with gambas,” I commented. “With the Med only a few miles away.”

“Aye, but that doesn't bother some of the places. They'll still serve frozen fish.”

“I'm surprised that water's a problem here though. Are you having any luck?”

He didn't answer right away, then he said abruptly, “It's that film.”

“What film?”

“Two of them really—that
Manon des Sources
and … what was that other one?”