Barbara Cleverly - Folly Du Jour

He’d committed Bonnefoye’s number to memory and destroyed the card and, in his state of fatigue, hoped he’d got it right.

The same lively female answered his tentative: ‘ Umm. .allô? ’

‘There you are! Just in time for supper. You know how to get here? Good. See you in two minutes! Bye!’

No names, no details, he noticed. And none asked for. Whoever she was, Bonnefoye’s female was well trained. And hospitable.

Joe was conscious of the unusual honour the Inspector was doing him and Sir George by extending this invitation to take shelter in his own home. The French rarely asked friends to dinner at their flat or house. Friendships were pursued in the café or restaurant or at shooting weekends in the country. If the Englishman’s home was his castle, the Frenchman’s was a keep with the drawbridge permanently up to repel invaders or visitors.

Bonnefoye had been surprised and enchanted with his first taste of British hospitality the previous winter. Welcoming the Frenchman on an official visit to London, Joe had taken responsibility for the young officer and invited him to spend a long weekend with him at his sister’s house in Surrey. An instant love-affair had flowered. The English family had fallen for Bonnefoye at first sight and Jean-Philippe had been equally smitten. He probably considered he was in Joe’s debt in the hospitality stakes but Joe was, nevertheless, surprised and charmed by the gesture.

And concerned. The man kept his address a close secret and doubtless for excellent reasons. Joe had no intention of bringing danger within his orbit. He was keeping up his guard. He ambled around the square again, marking his exit, and when he was sure he was unobserved, he slipped off into the rue Mouffetard. A lamp-lighter was moving down the street creating romantic pools of light and Joe hurried to get ahead of him, hugging the shadows. He was looking for a baker’s shop. In the alleyway to the side of it he found a door which opened at his tap.

He was greeted by Bonnefoye who closed and bolted the door behind him. ‘We’ve got him settled in,’ he told Joe as he led the way up a flight of stairs. ‘All’s well! Through here — it’s a bit crowded and you’ll have to share a room with me if you want to give the Ambassador a miss tonight. I gave Sir George our only guest room.’

Sir George was sitting at a kitchen table shelling peas. He was under instruction from a middle-aged woman who, with her striking dark looks, could be no other than Bonnefoye’s mother, and he appeared to be doing well at his task. His manicured thumbnail was slicing along with skill, making short work of the pods. When his mentor turned to greet Joe, he stuffed a podful of peas into his mouth and was sharply rapped on the knuckles.

‘Now add the spring onions and the butter. . more lettuce leaves on top. . tiny drop of stock. . don’t drown it. . and there you are! Put it on the stove. Back burner. . So glad to meet you at last, Commander!’ The voice from the telephone. Youthful, bossy and eager. ‘I’m running a little late this evening and I’ve had to call up reinforcements.’ She flashed a devastating smile at George. He grinned and mumbled a greeting across the table, content to take a back seat in the proceedings.

Madame Bonnefoye was much younger than George — perhaps fifty years old but, in the way of Frenchwomen, still attractive. She whisked off her grey pinafore to reveal a black widow’s dress enlivened by a pink scarf draped at the neck. Bonnefoye’s father, he had told Joe, had fallen at Verdun.

‘Jean-Philippe! A glass of wine for the Commander! It’s one from our home village in Burgundy. We bring it back in quantities. You boys have ten minutes to exchange information before you present yourselves at table. It will be a very simple supper: I made some soup to start with, then the butcher had some excellent veal which will be good with George’s petits pois à l’étuvé , followed by cheese and, since Jean-Philippe tells me you Englishmen are fond of sweet things, I’ve got some chocolate éclairs from the pâtissier.’

Joe decided he’d died and gone to heaven and, as he’d always thought it might, heaven smelled of herb soup and rang with a woman’s laughter.

He went to sit in the small salon of the apartment with Jean-Philippe, listening to the chatter from the kitchen. George’s stately but adventurous French sentences rolled out, to be punctuated by sharp bursts of amusement and exclamation from Madame Bonnefoye.

‘First things first,’ said Joe. ‘Security. I’m as sure as I can be I wasn’t followed here. You?’

‘Sure. But we mustn’t reduce the level of precaution. A message came by telephone late this afternoon. From Miss Watkins, I’m afraid. One of my staff took it down and I’ve translated it but I think it’s very clear. All too clear!’ He passed Joe a scrap of paper.

My new boyfriend very keen! He even came shopping with me. Was compelled to go on the offensive. He has a two-inch red scar on his left jaw.

Joe was aghast. He picked out the word which most alarmed him. ‘“Offensive”, she says?’

Bonnefoye cleared his throat. ‘This ties in with a report we had from the Galeries Lafayette,’ he said. ‘To be precise — from the ladies’ underwear department. A customer lodged a complaint against a man she alleged was following and threatening her. Two assistants, who remarked the young lady grappling with a tall man in a dark overcoat, went to her aid and attempted to detain him. Unfortunately he was able to effect an escape.’

‘And the scar? I hardly dare ask!’

‘. . was already a feature of his physiognomy before he encountered Miss Watkins.’

‘Thank goodness for that! But we should never have involved her.’

‘I agree. And it’s too late now to uninvolve her.’ Bonnefoye sighed. ‘But look — if these people are as good as we think they are, they’ll make enquiries and discover that she has absolutely no connection with Sir George and leave her to get on with her hearty tennis life. They’ll assume that she was just spooked by an over-zealous piece of shadowing. He’ll probably get a ticking off from his boss — should have had more sense than to follow her into the lingerie section. And Miss Watkins has certainly got closer — physically at any rate — to the tool they’re using than we have.’

‘That scar? Any use to us?’

‘Yes, could be. I’ve reported it to the division that keeps our Bertillon records. All marks of that kind are listed, classified and kept on card. If the chap has committed a crime before, his features will be on file and indexed. They ought to be able to come up with a few suggestions.

‘The thing that’s worrying me, Joe, is their apparent preoccupation with Sir G. They seem to have him in their sights. But why? Did he see something he’s not told anyone yet? Does he know something he ought not to know? You’ll have to grill him. I can’t seem to get near him. Any attempt on my part at putting a few questions gets batted aside — with the greatest good humour of course. Genial, avuncular, smelling of roses — and he’s as slippery as a bar of soap. But tell me — how did you get on with the widow?’

After a draught or two of the Chablis he was handed, Joe launched into an account of his evening.

‘She was off to Fouquet’s, eh?’ Bonnefoye was entertained by the thought. ‘I’ll make enquiries. We’ll know tomorrow who she met, what they ate, what time they left and where they went afterwards! Are you thinking — there’s one lady who is delighted that old Somerton was done to death?’

‘She told me she had no idea her husband was in Paris — they hadn’t communicated for years. And, of course, she was hundreds of miles away from the scene of the crime. .’ Joe began dubiously.