Peter May - The Critic

‘Not exactly.’

‘On holiday, then?’ This from a ruddy-faced man across the table who poured her a glass of wine.

‘No, my boss is staying in a gite at the Chateau des Fleurs. He’s the one going grape-picking. Sort of under cover. He’s here to investigate the death of the wine critic, you know, the American, Gil Petty?’

A silence you could touch fell across the table, and Nicole wondered what she had said wrong. All eyes were turned towards her.

‘Grape picking where?’ Fabien said.

Nicole was beginning to think it had been a mistake to say anything at all. But having started, she could hardly stop now. She said, with a lightness she did not feel, ‘The vineyard where the body was discovered. He starts tomorrow.’ She glanced anxiously around all the faces turned towards her. ‘Do you know it?’

The long silence that followed was finally broken by Fabien, whose dark look was reflected in the ominous tone of his voice. ‘We do. It’s here. La Croix Blanche.’ He paused. ‘And you can tell your boss he needn’t bother turning up tomorrow.’

Peter May

The Critic

Enzo guided his 2CV through a narrow archway, to the front of a house built in the style of a Spanish hacienda. Steps led up through a garden of small trees and potted plants to double glass doors opening into a cool reception hall. Wisteria, long past its season of tearful, violet bloom, grew gnarled and twisted around the doorway, and vivid red geraniums overflowed from their bacs a fleurs to discourage mosquitoes. Beyond the house, a roof sloped steeply over the entrance to a darkened tasting room, and huge windows gave on the chai, where men were at work pumping freshly pressed must into stainless steel cuves.

Opposite the house, on a terrasse shaded by ancient oak trees, a white table and chairs looked out over a retaining wall to the valley below, fields of golden stubble shimmering off into a hazy distance. An old man in dark blue overalls and a chequered shirt sat in the shadow of the trees, the remains of a meal on the table in front of him, a nearly empty glass in his hand, a nearly empty bottle just within reach. He seemed lost in contemplation, and only turned as Enzo shut the car door and started towards him.

‘I’m looking for Jean-Marc Josse,’ Enzo said.

The old man grunted. ‘Then you’ve found him.’ His round face was covered with a fine, silver stubble, and in spite of nearly having finished a bottle of wine, his eyes were sharp and bright. ‘Who wants him?’

‘My name’s Enzo Macleod.’ Enzo held out a hand, and the old man reluctantly let go of his glass to shake it.

‘What kind of a name’s that?’

‘Half Italian, half Scottish.’

‘You’re not English, then?’

‘No.’

‘You sound English.’

‘I’m not.’

The old man thrust out his jaw. ‘That’s alright, then. You’d better sit down.’

Enzo pulled up a chair and seated himself opposite, placing his hands carefully on the table in front of him. In France it was considered bad manners to hide your hands from view, in your lap or below the table. A hangover, perhaps, from the days when a hidden hand might have held a weapon.

‘So what can I do for you, monsieur?’

‘I’m investigating the death of Gil Petty, and I wanted to talk to you about the l’ Ordre de la Dive Bouteille.’

Jean-Marc Josse’s face darkened. ‘A damnable affair. Left a stain on the Ordre as impossible to remove as red wine on white silk. I wish he’d never come here.’

‘You made him a chevalier of the Ordre.’

‘He was the most influential wine critic in the world. The aim of our organisation is to promote the richness and diversity of the wines of Gaillac. Who better to make a chevalier?’

‘So you invited him.’

‘We invited him to apply.’

‘And what does an application entail?’

‘A letter asking to be inducted into the confrerie, and a complete curriculum vitae, leaving nothing out. To be accepted, you must reveal absolutely everything about yourself.’ He rubbed his stubble thoughtfully with the flat of a big hand. ‘You know, there are more than two thousand chevaliers around the world.’

Enzo nodded and became aware of the hum of insects that filled the air around them. A slight breeze stirred the leaves above their heads and dappled sunlight danced across the table, a kaleidoscope of flickering light. ‘Do you take photographs at these induction ceremonies?’

‘Of course. Do you want to see them?’ The old man’s pride in his organisation was overcoming his initial reticence.

‘I’d like that. Thank you.’

Jean-Marc Josse eased himself out of his seat, stretching stiffened limbs and headed off into the house with a slow, shuffling gait. He emerged some minutes later with a huge, hard-backed photo album, a thick manila file, and a bottle of red wine. ‘Have you tried our Mas Causse reds?’ He dumped the album in front of Enzo, laid down his folder, and began opening the bottle.

‘I can’t say I have.’

‘This is our classic,’ the old man said. ‘Forty percent braucol, forty percent duras, and ten percent each of merlot and syrah to soften it.’

‘Aged in oak?’

‘Good God, no!’ Old Josse was shocked. ‘I don’t believe in oak. I want to taste the grape. Too many winemakers these days hide their shortcomings behind the big, buttery flavours they get from aging the stuff in oak barrels. With the Mas Causse you taste the real thing. If we’ve made a bad wine, you’ll know it.’

He poured a small quantity into his own glass and took out another from the deep pockets of his overalls to pour a little for Enzo. Enzo watched, and followed suit, as the old winemaker held his glass up to the light, then peered into it before putting his nose almost entirely inside and breathing deeply.

‘Powdered sugar,’ he said. ‘Raspberry.’

Enzo nodded. He could see what the old man meant, but perhaps his nose was not as well developed. It certainly wasn’t as big.

Now the old man swirled his glass and breathed it in again. ‘Big fruit. Plums. And the raspberry’s still there.’ Then he took a mouthful, sucking air over his tongue as slowly he let the wine slip back over his throat.

Raspberry and liquorice were the overwhelming flavours that filled Enzo’s mouth. The wine was freshly acidic, not too heavy, and with a peppery taste that lingered pleasantly in the nasal cavity. ‘Very nice,’ he said, and the old man lifted an eyebrow as if Enzo had just damned his wine with faint praise.

Enzo opened the photo album. Its pages were filled with large, colourful prints that had been pasted on either side. Men and women in flowing crimson gowns edged in black. Jean-Marc Josse with his tri-pointed red Rabelaisian hat, brandishing a piece of gnarled and polished vine root that served as an induction rod. Intronisation into the confrerie was symbolised by the presentation of a gold-coloured representation of an amphora, the Greek urn in which Gaillac wines were originally stored and sold. This came in the form of a chunky medallion hung around the neck on a gold rope.

He flipped over a page, and there was Petty: a maroon apron over a red jacket, Josse hanging the amphora around his neck. Petty, Enzo knew, had been almost exactly the same age as himself, but he seemed much older. He was much more conservative, with his short cut, dyed black hair, a little silver left at the temples in an attempt to deceive the world into believing this was his natural colour. There were few things more unedifying than a man who dyed his hair and pretended not to.

Petty had been a private man, but vain. Biographers had found it hard to get background information about him. Most of their research material had come from his ex-wife and former friends. It was something Enzo had noticed in almost everything he had read. Petty seemed only to have former friends. In the end, it appeared, he had been a lonely and introverted soul, estranged from his family, never giving interviews, and turning up only rarely at public events.