Peter May - The Critic

Half a dozen bottles of fine Bordeaux were set out with a dozen or more tasting glasses. A Chateau Cheval Blanc, Enzo noticed, and a Chateau Lafite Rothschild. His eyes widened. These were wines you tasted rarely in a lifetime, if ever. There was a large basket of hard-crusted bread cut into thick chunks, and three bottles of still mineral water. Several yellowed and well-thumbed editions of Petty’s The Wine Critic, lay open, pages separated by pink Post-its.

‘Have you brought the Gaillacs?’

Enzo put his carrier bag on the table and lifted out the three bottles.

Old Domenech examined them each in turn. ‘Syrah, eh? Classified as a vin de pays because it doesn’t contain the minimum quantities of the proscribed grapes to qualify for the Gaillac Appellation Controlee. Stupid system. Making French wines uncompetitive in a changing world.’ He looked at the faces turned towards him in the twilight. ‘You know, ten years ago France exported three times as much wine as the so-called New World countries. Today we sell fifteen percent less than they do. We’re making wine we can’t sell. Even in Bordeaux there are tankers queuing daily outside distilleries to take advantage of government subsidies for turning unsold wine into industrial alcohol. What a waste!’

He moved on to the next bottle. ‘Domaine Vaysette. Cuvee Lea 2001. Don’t know it.’ And the next. ‘Chateau Lastours, Cuvee Special 2001. Ah, yes. A fine wine. You have Petty’s codes?’

Enzo placed the computer print-outs on the table. ‘It’s a matter of trying to identify flavours and smells and cross-referencing them between different reviews.’

‘I understand the principle, monsieur. But I can’t make any promises. I met Petty a few times. Didn’t know him well and didn’t like him much. His tastes and mine were somewhat different. But it’s a challenge. Since young Bertrand called, I’ve been going through some of Petty’s old newsletters from my files, and I went down to my cellar to dig out some of the Bordeaux he reviewed. That way we can make a direct comparison between what I taste and what he’s already described.’ He beamed. ‘But first, a few glasses of wine amongst friends for pleasure, eh?’

He reached for the Cheval Blanc, and Enzo’s heart nearly stopped. It was a 2005, and probably cost somewhere in the region of five hundred euros.

As old Domenech went through the ritual of opening the bottle and pouring a little of the wine into each of their glasses, he said, ‘You know, it’s odd how few female sommeliers there are. Most wine critics are men, too. Yet, all the research shows that women are better tasters than men and have a particularly heightened sense of smell during ovulation.’ He passed a glass to Sophie. ‘So our young lady should have the honour of tasting first.’ He grinned. ‘Although it’s not compulsory to tell us whether you’re ovulating or not.’

Sophie blushed deeply, and took a sip of the wine to cover her embarrassment. In an evolution of only two or three seconds, her expression changed completely. ‘Oh, my God!’ Her voice was almost a whisper. ‘I’ve never tasted wine this good.’ She immediately revised her statement. ‘I’ve never tasted anything this good.’

Domenech beamed his pleasure.

Nicole tried to avoid the scowling face of Madame Marre as she used her bread to mop up the last of her sauce. Roast veal sliced and served in its own jus, accompanied by sliced potatoes fried in duck fat and garlic and lathered in cream. What Fabien’s mother lacked in the social graces, she more than made up for in culinary skills. Nicole had been disappointed to discover that Fabien was not eating with them tonight, and so they had partaken of dinner in a depressing silence surrounded by floral wallpaper and lace doilies and large pieces of dark, antique furniture squeezed into a room too small to accommodate them. Madam Marre, it seemed, was intent on perpetuating the tastes of a generation long since passed away.

Ten minutes before, Nicole’s spirits had lifted briefly as Fabien came in from the chai. But he had merely nodded before heading on up the stairs. She had heard him moving about in his bedroom, the floor creaking overhead, like footsteps in wet snow.

‘Is Fabien not eating with us?’ she’d asked.

Madame Marre had glared at her. ‘He’s going out.’ Conversation over.

Nicole sighed, and wished she had gone with the others to the sommelier’s house at Cordes en Ciel. As soon as she was finished, she excused herself from the table and hurried upstairs to her room, in the hope perhaps of bumping into Fabien in the hall. What she had not been expecting was the sight that greeted her through the half-open door of his bedroom.

Fabien stood in front of a full length mirror, flowing crimson and black robes draped from the shoulders of his ample frame almost to the floor. He was adjusting his red triangular Rabelaisian hat with white-gloved hands. Nicole was unable to suppress a gasp of astonishment, and he turned at the sound, only for his face to flush as red as his robes. They stood staring at each other for several long moments.

Nicole finally found her voice. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m going to a meeting of the Ordre. A chapitre at the abbey.’

‘I didn’t know you were a member.’

Fabien shrugged, still cowed by the weight of his embarrassment. ‘It’s a family tradition.’

Nicole smiled. ‘Have you any idea how ridiculous you look?’

Fabien blushed again. Only now there was a defensive tone in his voice. ‘It was good enough for my father, so it’s good enough for me.’

‘Is that his outfit?’

‘No. His stuff would never have fitted me.’

‘Can I come with you?’

‘No, you cannot. It’s a private meeting.’

‘Oh, go on. I’ll wait for you in the car.’

‘No.’

‘I’ve nothing else to do all evening. I’ll just be sitting on my own in my room.’

‘You could sit with my mother.’

Nicole gave him a look, and the point was conceded without a word passing between them.

‘It could be a long wait.’

‘I don’t mind. I could take a wander around town.’ She put on her most appealing face. ‘Please, Fabien. It’s really depressing here on my own.’

‘What about your friends?’

‘Oh, they’re off tasting wine somewhere.’

Fabien straightened the collar of his shirt. ‘So how’s Monsieur Macleod’s investigation going?’

His enquiry was just too casual, and Nicole became suddenly guarded. She remembered Enzo’s admonition: ‘Fabien Marre has made it perfectly clear that he had nothing but antipathy towards Petty. And since both bodies were found on his vineyard, he has to be considered a suspect.’ Not that she believed it for a moment. But she was determined she would not commit any further errors of indiscretion. ‘Fine,’ was all she said. ‘So I can come with you, then?’

His sigh of resignation told her she had bullied him into submission.

It was more than twenty minutes since Fabien had disappeared through the arched gateway into the complex of offices, with its salle de degustation and wine museum, that comprised the Maison du Vin. The abbey next door had lost its pink quality in the dying light and huddled darkly now on the banks of the river until floodlights snapped on to throw it into stark relief against the darkening sky in the east.

Nicole was bored. She watched the faithful coming and going to confession through a small doorway in the entrance to the abbey. Whispering dark secrets to a hidden listener behind a latticed screen, then emerging minutes later muttering Hail Marys, absolved of all responsibility for life.

It was a long time since she had been to church. It brought back memories of her childhood. Squirming on uncomfortable pews next to her mother and father, listening to the cants and criticisms of the cure. Words that meant nothing to her then or now. But it made her think of her mother, and she felt a sudden stab of guilt. For two days she had barely given her a second thought. Except for a call the previous night to her father to ask how she was. He had been his usual uncommunicative self, and their brief conversation had left her depressed, bringing back the memory of sunlight splintering around the closed shutters of her mother’s bedroom, the air hot and heavy with the scent of impending death.