There's Something About St. Tropez (11 page)

“I will get the information for you,” the rental agent said at last. “One moment please.”

Phone to his ear, Mac sipped his beer, enjoying his sandwich and the passing parade. He knew it was wrong but anyway he gave Pirate a chunk of the sandwich. The dog wolfed it down in a single gulp then looked hopefully for more. A few minutes later the agent got back to Mac with the information.

“Now there will be no need for the police to contact me,” he said, sounding worried.

Mac assured him he was correct. He didn't add that at least for now it was. Later, who knew?

Meanwhile, he had what he wanted. The sky was blue, the breeze was soft and the sun shone. He was in the South of France and pretty women in summer dresses were stopping to coo over Pirate and tell Mac how cute he was, while at the same time giving him the eye. Mac smiled back and thought guiltily of Sunny.

On the way back to the hotel, he decided that later he'd call his assistant, Roddy, in Malibu and get him on the trail of the Lariot bank account, and also have him check out the Paris owners of Chez La Violette. Then he'd think about whether to go to the police.

Tomorrow, he'd pay a second visit to the villa, find out what was really going on there, and exactly what was so wrong about a house in a prime South of France location that no one had visited it in years.

 

13.

 

 

Sunny woke to Tesoro's worried snuffles in her ear. Through the half-closed shutters she could see the sky was the vivid electric blue of evening. She had been sleeping for hours and poor Tesoro must be bursting. Quickly pulling on shorts and a T-shirt, she pushed her hands through her hair, grabbed the dog and ran downstairs. No one was in the hall and she hurried down the driveway and out into the lane, where she bumped into Pirate, head up, nose alert for new sniffs. And of course behind him strolled Mac.

“Hey,” they said simultaneously.

Mac said, “When I got back you were so out of it I figured you'd sleep all night.”

“Tesoro woke me. I thought she must be desperate.”

“Don't worry, I already walked her half an hour ago.”

Sunny snuggled into his arms. “Is this really
us
?
In the South of France? Together?
”

He pretended to glance behind him. “I don't see anybody else.”

“Then kiss me,” Sunny said. So he did.

Arms still round each other, they strolled back to the hotel while Mac told her the story of his Madame Lariot office visit.

“I've left messages for all our ‘International Misfits,' summoning them to a breakfast meeting at eight tomorrow morning at the Café le Sénéquier in St. Tropez.”

“Eight o'clock?”

“Eight,” Mac said firmly. “We can't miss a minute of St. Tropez.”

“I guess not,” she said, sounding doubtful. “But what about Chez La Violette?”

“I need to find out why Lariot chose the place and if she had any accomplices. I also want to know why it's not been lived in for years, a villa in a prime location like that.”

He stopped and took Sunny by the shoulders, looking at her. “Tell you what, why don't you and I go there now? Check what state the place is really in, see if there are any clues about Lariot. Just you and me?”

“And the ghost of Violette?”

He gave her a little shake, trying to get some sense into her. “Forget what that concierge said. There's no such things as ghosts, it's real live people who cause all the trouble. People like Madame Lariot.”

Sunny glanced down at her shorts and T-shirt; she hadn't even brushed her hair. “I can't go like this.”

“Why? Afraid Violette'll complain?” Mac asked, making her laugh.

They collected the Peugeot and drove back down the lane. The double wooden gates to Chez La Violette were closed, and when Mac got out and tried to open them he found they were swollen by last night's rain and would not budge. He got back in the car and drove slowly along the perimeter of the grounds. With a large villa like this, there was bound to be a tradesmen's entrance.

He found it fifty yards down the lane, almost hidden by a thicket of overgrown bushes. Green paint was peeling in chunks off the gate and a broken padlock hung from the arrow-shaped iron latch. The padlock chain had been cut.

They were in a kitchen garden with small plots divided into squares by low box hedges, in the French style called
parterre
. Gone-to-seed lettuces still grew there, and courgettes rampaged over everything, their yellow blossoms half-hiding little clumps of wild strawberries. Espaliered peach and pear trees lined one sunny wall, though there was no fruit, and vines with bunches of hard green grapes already pecked over by the birds, sagged from wire supports. Four narrow gravel pathways, just wide enough for a wheelbarrow, led to a centered stone fountain, its carved cherubs green with lichen, its swans'-head spouts silenced forever.

A sudden wind rustled through the tops of the trees with a shushing sound that sent a matching shiver down Sunny's spine. She had been in situations like this before with Mac, in houses that had given her the creeps, that had sent messages to her that at the time she had not understood, until disaster had fallen, that is. Now Chez La Violette made her nervous. She
checked the dogs. Animals were supposed to be the barometers of anything untoward, like creepy situations and earthquakes, but they seemed okay, trotting in front of them on the path that led to the back of the villa.

The sun was going down quickly and the sky began to darken. Sunny clutched Mac's hand. “Why do I always agree to accompany you on wild-goose chases in the middle of the night?”

“It's not the middle of the night. Besides, I've got my flashlight.”

Of course he had! Sunny knew Mac always carried that pencil-light thing that lit about six square inches in front of him and that left her in the dark.

Surprisingly, they found the kitchen door unlocked.

Mac opened it and Pirate loped eagerly at first, up the steps, then suddenly hung back. Sunny glanced nervously at him. Was he proving her theory correct? She picked up Tesoro. “You first,” she said to Mac.

He stepped inside and switched on the light. He said thoughtfully, “Now I wonder why, when nothing else about this place functions, the electricity is turned on?”

“The gas too,” Sunny volunteered. “The stove worked. I boiled water for coffee on it.”

Everything was as they had left it: the rinsed coffee mugs on the wooden drainer; the Nescafé tin next to the empty Soberano brandy bottle on the tiled counter; chairs pushed haphazardly back. Then why did Sunny have the uneasy feeling something was different? She took another careful look round. She couldn't put her finger on it but something bothered her. Mac was already climbing the stairs that led to Nate Masterson's turret room and she hurried after him.

The circular room was meant to look like a cabin on a boat, with round windows like portholes, and a large
oeil-de-bæuf
, a bull's-eye window opposite the bed, from which you could see the sea. It was a simple guest room with a white iron bed and white-painted cabinets, fashioned to fit the curve of the pale blue walls.

Downstairs again, they checked the large sitting room that led onto a terrace at the rear of the house. The furniture was covered in dust sheets and only the three Murano chandeliers, feminine confections of crystal and pink glass roses, glimmered with life.

Quite suddenly the shuttered house with its covered furniture seemed to suck the breath out of Sunny's lungs. Claustrophobia threatened. She ran back outside and stood, arms folded over her chest, gasping in the fresh sea air. Chez La Violette seemed to breathe mystery and secrets that she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

“Mac?” she called, suddenly aware she was alone.

“Over here, hon.” His voice came from inside the house.

She walked back into the hall, remembering Nate brandishing his sword at the top of the stairs. Come to think of it, where was the sword? She had last seen it on the kitchen table right before they all left.

“Mac?” she called again.

“Here.” His voice came from the direction of the bedroom.

Picking up the dog, Sunny tiptoed through the hall, asking herself impatiently, why, for God's sake, she was walking on tiptoe in an empty house.

The door to Violette's boudoir stood open. It was dark. She called Mac again, running her hand down the wall, blindly searching for the switch. A lamp flashed on and Sunny jumped.
She had not touched the light switch
. Telling herself not to be so silly, that it must be Mac, that he was probably in the bathroom, she waited.

The bathroom door swung slowly open. Her heart beat so loudly she could hear the blood thundering in her ears. Her voice quavered as she said, “Mac? Are you there?”

There was no reply, but the musty room was suddenly filled with that same sweet scent of flowers. Sunny closed her eyes, unable to move.

“Here I am, honey,” Mac said from behind her. She leapt about two feet in the air. “I went to check the basement, lost you for a minute.”

She sagged against him. “Don't ever do that to me again.”

“Do what?”

“Don't ever leave me alone in this house again.”

Mac looked at her, puzzled.

“Do you smell the flowers?”

“What flowers? I don't see any.”

“No! Do you
smell
them?”

He sniffed. “No, honey, I don't. And nor do you. This place is getting to you. Come on, let's go.”

He stopped to switch off the light, aware of Sunny's eyes on him.

“Mac, I swear I didn't turn that lamp on,” she said. “It went on by itself.”

“Old houses,” Mac said easily. “The electricity can be a bit uncertain.” They walked back into the kitchen. Something about it still bothered Sunny but she was anxious to get out and waited on the steps in the dark for Mac, breathing that soft moist air that smelled of green growing things and wild strawberries.
Living things
.

It wasn't until they were in the car and driving back to the hotel that she remembered what had bothered her in the kitchen. “It was the piano,” she said.

Mac glanced at her. “What about the piano?”

“The lid was up. I could see the keys.”

“So?”

“Last night that piano lid was down. It had been down for a very long time. There was dust all over it.”

“Okay.” Mac gave her a so-what smile.

Sunny stared straight ahead. She said, “Not one of us ever touched that piano.”

 

14.

 

 

At eight o'clock the following morning Café le Sénéquier was not crowded, merely a few local coffee drinkers, newspapers to hand, croissants ready to be dunked, indifferent to the glittering array of expensive yachts moored directly across the road. Farther along, the
livrarie
had its magazine stands out and the tourist boutiques were washing down their sidewalks prior to setting up their racks of chiffon scarves and bead necklaces, T-shirts and flip-flops.

The Sénéquier waiters in white shirts and black pants with the usual white apron wrapped around the waist, polished the zinc bar and wiped off tables in anticipation of the rush that was to come. Some took a quick break, edging out into the narrow side street where cars barely made it past, perching on a bit of crumbled sidewalk, snatching a fast cigarette.

Sunny and Mac chose to sit toward the back of the terrace where it joined the open-fronted café proper, arranging the red chairs and grouping three small café tables in readiness for the “meeting” of what Mac described as “a bunch of international misfits escaping from their real lives.”

Tesoro settled on Sunny's lap blinking in the sunlight, while Pirate took a quick sniff of every chair then slunk under the table at Mac's feet. For a moment, perhaps because they were in foreign territory, there seemed to be a truce between the dogs.