Peter May - Extraordinary People

Charlotte was sitting among the pews, still going through her leaflets. She looked up and turned to see where Enzo was. Her voice rose boldly above those of the soprano choir. ‘One of the clues was a bottle of 1990 Dom Perignon, right?’ Enzo nodded. ‘Well, suppose they didn’t actually hide the body here, in Hautvillers, but in the caves of Moët et Chandon? Down below Épernay, where the 1990 vintage is stored.’

Raffin turned towards Enzo. ‘That’s possible, isn’t it?’

Enzo was less certain. The clues had led to Hautvillers, not Épernay. But he had no alternative suggestion. He shrugged. ‘I suppose.’

Brick tunnels with arched roofs led off into a fog of humid air clouding around electric lights. ‘The temperature in the caves remains constant all year round,’ the girl was saying. ‘Between ten and twelve degrees. Humidity is a constant seventy-five to eighty percent.’

Enzo felt the chill seeping deep into his bones after the heat of the morning sun. Thousands upon thousands of dark green bottles, laid on their sides between rows of wooden slats, lined the walls as far as he could see. A-framed racks called pupitres held yet more bottles, at angles that kept them neck down.

‘The bottles in the pupitres are turned just a little every day by expert remuers ,’ the guide said. ‘This is to encourage the remaining sediment to gather in the necks, which are then rapidly frozen. The sediment is trapped in the ice, and when the bottles are reopened, natural pressure expels the ice and the sediment with it. Which is when the winemaker completes the process. A small quantity of liqueur d’expédition , composed of sugar and some wines from the company’s reserves, is added before the bottles are finally corked and wired.’

The official tour of the caves of Moët et Chandon had seemed like the easiest way to check out Charlotte’s suggestion, and so they had joined a tour group of more than twenty, and followed a guide through the tunnels immediately below the company’s headquarters in the Avenue de Champagne.

Enzo was learning things he had not known about champagne. That it was a blend of three grapes: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. That two of those grapes were red, and must be pressed very gently in order not to transfer colour from the skin to the juice. That the vines of Champagne were the most northerly in France, and were constantly pruned to ensure that the sun got to the grapes. That the chalk soil, which so characterised the bleached, white landscape, retained the warmth of the sun, as well as the rain, which it released gradually to regulate the growth of the vines.

They had stopped, now, in front of a deep recess set into the tunnel wall. Racks of champagne bottles disappeared into the shimmering darkness beyond. The girl continued with her mechanical commentary. ‘Notice the plaque, with its six digit code which identifies what year and brand of champagne is stored here. These are secret codes, known only to the cellar master. They are constantly changing as the champagnes move through the processes of fermentation, remuage, dégorgement, dosage, et cetera.’

Enzo interrupted her. ‘So if you knew what these codes were, you would be able to identify where a champagne from any given year was stored?’

The guide seemed irritated by the interruption to her well-practised flow. ‘In theory. But as I just told you, the codes change as the wines move.’

‘Which they do all the time?’ Charlotte asked.

‘Space in the caves is at a premium,’ the girl said. ‘Bottles are moved on, and eventually out, displaced by each new harvest.’

Raffin said, ‘So the Dom Perignon 1990, for example, wouldn’t be stored in the same place as it was ten years ago?’

‘Absolutely not. In fact, I’m not sure how many bottles of that particular vintage we have left. But even if I knew the cellar master’s codes from ten years ago, I wouldn’t know where to find the 1990 today.’

They emerged, blinking, into the sunlight, the bubbles from the three free glasses of champagne they had received at the end of the tour still fizzing on their tongues. Charlotte spread her palms apologetically. ‘Sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time.’ Body parts hidden behind or amongst bottles of the Dom Perignon 1990 would have been discovered years ago.

Fourteen grand villas, each one home to one of the prestigious Maisons de Champagne, marched up the hill to the top of the Avenue. Across the street, the Hotel de Ville stood in its own park behind a high stone wall. They crossed the road and wandered into the park, uncertain of what to do next. None of them had voiced it, but it was clear that each of them was convinced their trip was turning out to be little more than a wild goose chase. Enzo gazed despondently across a small, blue lake surrounded by willows. He felt personally responsible for their failure. And yet, there was no doubt in his mind that the clues had led him irrevocably to Dom Perignon and Hautvillers. Raffin was idly skimming stones across the surface of the lake, and Charlotte had wandered up uneven steps to a pavilion whose roof was supported on a circle of pillars.

‘We’ve got to go back,’ Enzo said.

Raffin turned to look at him. ‘Back where?’

‘Hautvillers. We must have missed something.’

‘What?’

‘Well, if I knew that, we wouldn’t have missed it.’ Enzo was annoyed with himself for getting irritated.

But Raffin just shrugged. ‘If you like.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘But I’ll have to be getting back to Paris soon.’

Enzo looked up and saw Charlotte watching them from between the pillars. She inclined her head and offered him the palest of smiles. ‘Let’s go.’

They drove in silence once more over the huge expanse of rusting railway junctions on the outskirts of town, abandoned rolling stock mutilated by vandals and left to rot. The waters of the Marne, on the far side, were a soupy chemical green. In a matter of minutes they were out among the vines, hills rising around them, Hautvillers cradled amid the trees and basking in sunshine. It was hard, now, to get parked, and by the time they got back to the abbey it was filled with tourists wandering the aisles, cameras flashing in the gloom.

‘I’m going to have a wander around the graveyard,’ Charlotte said, and she headed off through a small gate in the cemetery wall.

Enzo and Raffin walked again through the abbey looking at the same things they had looked at two hours before. Nothing had changed. Nothing new struck them. Enzo pulled down a folding seat below the wood panelling and sat down, gazing despondently along the length of the nave. Raffin stopped in front of him and lowered his voice. ‘I don’t like being lied to.’

Enzo looked at him, startled. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You and Charlotte.’

‘For God’s sake, man!’ Enzo’s raised voice turned heads in their direction. He lowered it again. ‘I thought it was over between you and Charlotte.’

Raffin’s jaw set. ‘It is.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘I asked you last night if there was anything going on between you….’

‘And I told you there wasn’t. Which was true. Then.’ Enzo looked away self-consciously. ‘Things change.’

‘Yes, so I heard.’

Enzo wondered if he meant that Charlotte had told him. Or that he had heard them, after all, making love the night before. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

Raffin looked at him hard for a very long time, and then let his eyes drift away towards the altar. ‘No,’ he said finally.

The church door creaked as it opened again and light flooded across the flags. Charlotte’s voice cut through the hush. ‘Enzo….’ They turned to see her framed in the doorway, and she waved an urgent hand towards them. ‘There’s something you should see.’