David Dickinson - Death of a wine merchant

Septimus Parry smiled. ‘I can almost see the old gentleman, tottering slowly round his house, taking a few hesitant steps in the garden. I regret to have to tell you that we have no Latour and no Lafite. That is not to say there is none of it in England – there is – but we cannot persuade the owners to part with it for any amount of money. Just let us know how many red and how many white you would like, what quantities of Bordeaux and burgundy would suit you and we will do the rest.’

‘You don’t have a carte des vins , a wine list?’

‘Not as such,’ said Septimus, feeling rather anxious now. ‘As I say, we ask the clients what they would like, in general terms.’

‘Is that not rather unusual?’ said Powerscourt. ‘You mean my old relative can’t even have a bottle of his favourite Nuits St Georges?’

‘I think we could manage that, Lord Powerscourt. You see, the way it works at Whites Hotel is that we supply the wines at our discretion. Their chef plans the meal round the particular vintages we are going to provide and everybody is happy. So if you let us know the colour and the quantity we can set to straight away.’

Powerscourt wondered if the young man knew that he, Powerscourt, suspected that the wines were fake, that they weren’t playing an elaborate game of charades. ‘I should be most interested to know,’ he said, ‘how you discovered these wines. And how nobody else has discovered them. That’s rather a coup, I should say.’

‘It was luck, really,’ said Septimus, running his fingers through his hair. ‘I’ve got this great-uncle, he’s dead now, but he was a great lover of wine. Every year Berry Bros. amp; Rudd would send him their pick of the best clarets and the best burgundies of that year. In the early 1860s he saw the writing on the wall – he thought that sooner or later the phylloxera insect would munch its way through all the vineyards of France, starting in the south and going all the way up to Champagne. So he doubled the size of his order. Soon the cellar was full to bursting with this stuff. Then, before he had time to drink a tenth of it, he died. His son wasn’t interested in wine at all, hardly touched it. I knew his son, third in line from the man who bought all the wine, at Oxford. So when we started the business, Vicary and I, we got in touch with this chap. His family knew two or three others who also had supplies. Then we got into touch with Whites to organize the dinners.’

‘How fascinating!’ said Powerscourt. ‘I should love to go and see the cellars where these treasures are kept. Is there any chance of a visit?’

‘I’m afraid not, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Septimus, sending the ball back across the net once more. ‘If it was up to me we could go there this very day, but the owners don’t like people trampling all over their house as they put it. They’re very strict about their privacy.’

‘Very well,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I can’t see a wine list, I can’t see the place where the bottles are stored – what can I see, Mr Parry?’

Septimus laughed. ‘You come back tomorrow, Lord Powerscourt, and bring us a list for you to choose from. I promise you.’

Powerscourt said he would return and set off on his way back to Markham Square. As he went he reflected that there was only one part of Septimus Parry’s story that might be true but probably wasn’t. The house in the country with the wine lover forty years before ordering his supplies from Berry Bros. amp; Rudd, that was possible, but probably untrue. This evening Septimus would have a meeting with the Necromancer where they would agree the wines to be faked. Powerscourt looked forward very much to tasting them. And he sent urgent word to Johnny Fitzgerald to ask him to follow Septimus Parry wherever he went the following afternoon. He, Powerscourt, was going to call on Piccadilly Wine in the early afternoon. Maybe Septimus Parry would lead him to the Necromancer.

After three days Tristram Bennett tired of being the replacement for his murdered cousin Randolph. Life as a wine merchant was not quite what he had expected. Tristram had imagined that Colville retainers would appear at regular intervals throughout the day, bringing tea or coffee or drinks. They did not appear. Instead a wide variety of messengers appeared with things for him to read, things for him to sign, people in the trade he must talk to. These conversations did not go easily. For although Tristram had absorbed a certain amount about the wine business in his time with the firm, he was not capable of an opinion on the likely vintage quality in Burgundy or whether they should change shippers for the delivery of their Sancerre. To all difficult questions he told his visitors he would get back to them. He rather wished he could return to his undemanding position in East Anglia.

He wondered what to do about Emily Colville. If Tristram was going to continue his affair, he would have to find a house or a flat to rent close to Emily’s place in Barnes. He knew she would never yield to him in the house she shared with her husband. In Norfolk the rent on the little cottage with the thatched roof had been tiny. In London it would be rather more, but he knew he did not dare mention money to Emily or she would accuse him of putting gold before love. This, in fact, was a proposition that Tristram would gladly have subscribed to, even if not in female company.

It was the formal invitation that finished his incipient career as a wine merchant. It came shortly before lunch on the third day. It was an invitation to the Annual Dinner of the Wine Merchants and Vintners Society of London, to be held in the Vintners Hall in the City. Formal Dress, it said on the bottom line. Tristram was no puritan in questions of food and drink, but he could imagine the whole scene. Row upon row of tables bedecked with flowers and bottles of wine. The men, all in their fifties and sixties, balding, braying and boasting about their wine business or their wives or their children, growing redder and redder as the evening went on, progressing from the colour of rose to the colour of beetroot. And then the speeches! All too long, all too pompous, all too self-obsessed, all too vain. Whatever else the wine business might hold, this was not for Tristram. He did tell Davis before he left for his club in the middle of his last afternoon that Randolph’s position was not for him. He was going back to Norfolk.

Lord Francis Powerscourt was going to the west London suburb of Ealing on the Piccadilly line. He was thinking as he went about the links between the Necromancer in his warehouse, if that, indeed, was where he lived, Whites Hotel and Piccadilly Wine where he proposed to call later in the day. He found the history of these strange wines, real or faked, absolutely fascinating and he knew he would follow the story with great interest. But for the life of him he could not see how it might lead to murder. Faked wines would easily lend themselves to blackmail. The announcement that Colvilles or Piccadilly had been trafficking in these illicit substances would be bad for a day or two. But a sensible firm would quickly put out a statement that a bad apple had been identified and removed, that business was returning to normal and the loyal customers who had been with Colvilles or Piccadilly all these years could sleep easy in their beds as all Colville wines were now genuine.

Thomas Colville opened the door of 27 Inkerman Avenue in person. He was in his late forties or early fifties with a great beard and a handlebar moustache.

‘Good morning to you, Lord Powerscourt, welcome to 27 Inkerman Avenue. The battle may be long over but the house still stands!’ He laughed lightly at his own joke. ‘Come in and sit down, I’ll rouse Ethel up from wherever she’s hiding!’