The Dave Bliss Quintet (3 page)

And what would she think?

OK, so I'm a bit lonely. Lonely and bored, he admits to himself, wondering why he hadn't given her his cellphone or apartment number for a return call. He would have to talk to her soon, though. It wasn't as if she didn't know where he was or what he was doing.

“This could take months, even years,” he explained to her before leaving, despite Richards's admonition that he shouldn't tell anyone. Samantha wasn't just “anyone,” and a disquieting internal voice urged him to make sure someone knew — another reason he didn't
want her to call. Just in case
they
, whoever
they
were, had tapped the phone at either of their apartments.

“They are asking me to live in the South of France, all expenses paid, for gawd knows how long, just to catch one villain,” he told her as they meandered along the back lanes of the South Downs.

“Dad. Where's this leading?” Samantha asked, puzzled by a church that appeared to be identical to one she'd seen ten minutes earlier.

“I'm not sure,” he replied, missing her point, preoccupied with thoughts of Edwards and Richards. “That's the problem. I can't decide if this is a put-up job just to get me out of the way —”

“No, I meant where does this road go?” she cut in. “I thought you were taking me to lunch, not on an expedition to the farthest flung corner of the British Empire.”

“This is Kent,” he started, then caught on. “Oh. I see what you mean.”

A mock-Tudor pub appeared around the bend ahead, and Bliss gave the impression he'd been aiming for it all along as he swung into the parking lot. Minutes later, they were at the bar, waiting for their table.

“Drugs,” suggested Samantha, sipping her gin and tonic.

“No thanks,” he joked.

“Be serious, Dad. You know what I mean.”

It was the obvious conclusion, though it offered no explanation for the secrecy. The faces of drug barons regularly filled the pages of
The Police Gazette
.

“Is it common to be given a assignment without being given the reasons?” Samantha enquired.

The correct answer would have been: “Yes, if there's a risk someone will tip off the target.” Although that
answer left him questioning what the hierarchy really thought of him. “All they told me was that he's a really big fish,” he said, skirting the question.

“Well,” she laughed, “the Med's only a small pond. It shouldn't be too difficult to find him.”

“It's still a bit fishy,” Bliss said, making her laugh again.

“What do you know about him?” Samantha enquired, switching on her courtroom voice.

“Not a lot,” he confessed, though he was reluctant to admit Richards had fobbed him off with a “need-to-know basis” excuse. “I've got a photo and a description, and I'm supposed to get the rest from an informant when I get there.”

“Informant?”

He nodded, a handful of peanuts poised. “Someone tipped off the Yard to his location — possibly his wife. Apparently he did a bunk with a bimbo.”

“Hell hath no fury ...” Samantha started, and then urged him to take the case as she screwed up her nose at the dog-eared menu. “It sounds like a doddle to me. Can I come and visit? The food there is fabulous.”

“Might have known you had an ulterior motive. The trouble is that people have a habit of getting killed when I get involved.”

“And you blame yourself?” she asked, her voice lifting in surprise.

“No,” he began, though he was beginning to wonder.

During Bliss's evening promenade, which has become a daily ritual, he checks out the quayside restaurants and packed bars of St-Juan-sur-Mer, Johnson's photograph
tucked inside his writing pad. Two weeks' eyestrain has left everyone looking pretty much the same, and every day he's spotted at least one dead cert whom he has eliminated one way or another, but he still searches diligently, and still waits for the informant to leap out of the shadows and announce herself with the codeword.

The ancient port and faded resort of St-Juan-sur-Mer, squeezed out of the travel brochures by the pushy hoteliers of Cannes and Nice, has kept a grip on its narrow beach and clientele of loyal tourists only by fighting off the invasion of casinos, nightclubs, and amusement arcades that have swamped its neighbours. The one concession to modernity lies at the foot of the main street, where once upon a time Napoleon, escaping from exile on Elba, landed to form an army. Now a modern marina, with cosmopolitan quayside restaurants and bars, accommodates the overflow of yachts escaping from the snobbery of the long-established harbours that dot the coast.

The bar L'Escale is one of the old brigade, with its smoke-stained ceiling, twenty-year-old Pernod posters, and a flickering 1960s neon sign. It still stands sentinel over the old port, although it is cut off from the wide promenade — and its customers, sheltering under shady plane trees and parasols — by the racetrack of the coast road. What's the life expectancy of a staff member? wonders Bliss, watching the slender, olive-skinned waitress zigzagging between speeding cars, buses, and motorbikes as she spies him approaching his regular table.

“
Vin rouge
,” he orders with a smile as he pulls up his chair.

“
Vous parlez français comme une vache espagnole
,” laughs Jacques, the table's other occupant, as Angeline,
the waitress, streaks back across the roadway to fetch his drink from the bar.

Why would Spanish cows speak French? Bliss wonders, but doesn't ask for fear of further exposing his linguistic shortcomings as he greets the weathertanned Frenchman.

“
Bonsoir
, Jacques, you smooth talker. Are you well?
Ça va?
” asks Bliss.

“
Oui.
I am absolutely perfect,” responds Jacques, but then his face falls as he casts a jaundiced eye out over the sea, complaining, “But zhe fishing …
merde!
”

“No sardines today then, I guess,” says Bliss in English, mindful that while his ability to speak French may get him a decent meal and a good bed for the night, it doesn't stretch very much further — a point that came into question during his briefing by Commander Richards.

“You do speak the language, don't you?” the officer asked, and while the words “not much” might have got him off the case, his service record lay open in front of Richards. The answer was there — he'd put it down as an attribute when applying for promotion to inspector, never thinking anyone would ask for proof or expect a conversation — and this was not the time to give anyone a reason to call him a liar.

Angeline rushes the traffic with the determination of a frog heading for spawning grounds and delivers Bliss's wine as two couples swoop on a nearby table and vie for seats overlooking the harbour. The men win; the women's faces fall; the men relent; the women smile — everybody feels victorious.

“Zhey are Engleesh,” says Jacques, nodding to the newcomers as he lights a cigarette. “Zhe anorak brigade,”
he adds with a sneer, and his words sink home with Bliss as they tuck plastic raincoats and rolled umbrellas under their seats, while pulling sweaters and jackets tight against the balmy night air.

“Warm evening,” Bliss calls to break the ice.

“Too bloody hot if you ask me,” answers one, taking a handkerchief from his jacket pocket to dab his forehead.

War babies, thinks Bliss, putting them in their late fifties or early sixties, and he wanders over to introduce himself.

“Hugh Mason and my landlubbers, Mavis, John, and Jennifer,” pronounces Hugh, the sweaty one, the fit of his navy blazer marking him as a man whose seafaring experience has been largely honed in the bar of the Admiral Nelson or Rover's Return. Bliss is still wondering how long it has been since he was able to button it up when Jennifer pipes up and asks his name.

“Dave Burbeck, author,” he responds.

“Ooh, what d'ye write?” she gushes.

“Books,” he begins, but the start of a frown warns him against humour. “I'm working on a historical mystery,” he continues.

“The old skulduggery —” starts Mavis.

“There's plenty of that here,” butts in Jennifer, and Bliss is on the point of asking if anyone can place Johnson's face when Jennifer lets slip that she is referring to the local entrepreneurs. “Do you know what they charge for a cuppa?” she demands.

“Cheaper to drink wine, if you ask me,” says Hugh, clearly speaking from experience.

“First day?” asks Bliss, their pallidness marking them out as new arrivals, and is surprised to learn they're starting their second week.

“They're going to the beach tomorrow,” Bliss explains, returning to his wine and Jacques, as if apologizing for the tardy behaviour of his countrymen.

“Not tomorrow,” says Jacques forebodingly, after a thoughtful inspection of the star-filled sky.

“
Pourquoi pas?
”

“Why not?” he repeats in English, castigating Bliss for daring to ask. “The wind,
naturellement. Le mistral
,” he declares, as if he has the power to summon the fearsome wind that will strike a chill into the hearts of
les patrons
of the beach restaurants, sweeping with little warning down the valley of the Rhône to toss beach mattresses and umbrellas into the sea, leaving nearnaked sun worshippers sand-blasted and wind-sore.

The skepticism on Bliss's face is palpable — this is not the first time Jacques has forecast an ill wind. And, despite the fact that the local man loftily declared, “I am a fisherman —
un pêcheur
,” at their first meeting some two weeks earlier, most of his meteorological predictions have been way off course.

“
Bof
,” says Jacques, shrugging. “You will see.”

The squeal of tires signals a narrow escape, and turns a few heads, as Angeline cheats death to deliver a tray of drinks to a sombre group assembling a few tables into a huddle. “What's happening?” Bliss whispers to her as she passes.

“It is zhe meeting of
les hôteliers —
zhey are crazy. Zhe
potier
makes zhem crazy,” she explains. And it's significant that in an area renowned for potters — the pottery capital of France, if not the world — Bliss immediately knows which potter she is talking about. It can only be the bearded man, his battered straw hat perched on a bush of grey hair, throwing small vases
and candle holders for a fascinated crowd at the other end of the promenade.

Bliss has paused most evenings, watching the man's deep-set, piercingly blue eyes constantly sweep the crowd as he moulds the revolving clay, noticing the way he works the crowd as he works the piece, watching the girls and women entranced by his powerful, yet tender, fingers sensuously massaging the malleable paste into pretty pots just for them.

Spellbound by his eyes and hands, the women hang back to watch; their menfolk, uneasy at the potter's power, try unsuccessfully to pull away, heading for the bar. The adroit fingers mesmerize and the eyes ensnare as he works pot after pot. Two pots a minute — two hearts a second. Who could not fall in love with this gentle man with the blue eyes? And the women make themselves tall in the crowd as they try to catch his eye with a smile.

“
Combien?
How much?” they ask, as he singles out a recipient and tenderly hands her a pot balanced on a little cardboard tray.

“
Gratuit.
Nothing — it is free,” he answers softly, speaking French or English as appropriate, but his begging bowl overflows with notes and coins.

Beaming, they walk away with a little masterpiece forged in wet clay. Who would not leave a large tip for such an exquisite pot? And, pot in hand, they parade their delicate prize along the promenade until they tire. Then, “
Papa
,” or “
Mon chéri
,” they snivel, “please carry my pot.” If they are lucky it will still be in shape when they return to their hotel room. “He made it just for me,” they imagine boasting to their friends back home in England or America — but how to get it home?

The monthly meeting of L'association des hôteliers de St-Juan (founded 1903, according to the bronze plaque on the wall of the Hôtel Napoléon) is about to address that issue, as the last of the twelve members mutters an apology for his tardiness and pulls up a chair.

“
C'est un emmerdement
,” mumbles the
président
, before calling on the local priest to say a few solemn words at the commencement of the meeting.

“He says it is a shitty mess,” explains Jacques, seeing the confused look on Bliss's face.

“What is?”

“
Merde
— zhe pottery, of course,” Jacques says, as if Bliss could have worked that out by himself. “Zhey say zhat since zhe potter started giving away his little pots, zheir toilets are always stuffed up.”

It is a full turnout, the first in years. Not since the government tried to introduce a uniform and understandable rating system for hotels have they been so united —
no snobby suit from Paris is going to tell us how many stars we can put on our signs — mon dieu!

Ten men and two women, faces and voices taut with determination, are deliberating the problem of blocked plumbing with more passion than jurors in a contentious homicide. No one seriously articulates a murderous suggestion, though a few moments of solemn consideration are given to ramming a wet pot down the bothersome artisan's throat — a taste of his own medicine. “
Salaud
,” mutters one, and the black-robed priest tactfully withdraws to commune with Bacchus at the bar as he decides on the penance for calling someone a bastard.

“I have asked, begged, and pleaded,” explains the
président.
“But no — he will not stop.”

“I even offered him free dinners for a month in my hotel,” says one, a dustbin-bellied man.