Peter Mayle: The Vintage Caper

His phone was ringing as he came into the hotel lobby.

“Where are you?” said Philippe. “Ah, there you are-I see you.” He waved at Sam from the table where he was sitting with coffee and newspapers.

“I’ll be right back,” said Sam. “I have to get rid of this fish.”

Philippe showed no surprise. “Of course,” he said, as though a man wearing a business suit and a large dead fish were an everyday sight. “Sophie’s on her way down.”

Sam approached the desk of the concierge, holding his catch in front of him with both hands. “My compliments to the chef,” he said, placing the fish on the desk, “and I would like him to have this loup de mer . It’s fresh from the market.”

The concierge inclined his head and smiled. “Of course, monsieur. How very kind. I’ll see that he gets it immediately. Will there be anything else?”

Sam went back to join the others, with a mental tip of the hat to the concierge for his sangfroid . Jeeves would have been proud of him.

There was an air of expectancy about Sophie and Philippe, and Sam wasted no time getting started. “I have an idea,” he said. “But before I get to that, let me go over some of the background again. Stop me if you disagree with any of it. Now, we’re sure beyond a reasonable doubt that the stolen wine is in the cellar, and we have Roth’s fingerprints as proof. So we could blow the whistle on Reboul and go home. But what would happen then? The police would be all over him and Vial, and lawyers would get involved. If Reboul has covered his tracks-and I’m pretty sure he will have done that very thoroughly-all we can be sure of is that this whole business will take months to resolve. Probably years. Meanwhile, the wine will be taken into custody as evidence. And there will probably be a press embargo that would stop Philippe writing about a delicate case affecting a prominent man’s reputation. Reboul’s lawyers would make sure of that. I’d bet on it.” Sam stopped to let this sink in. “Any questions so far?”

Sophie said nothing. Philippe chewed his lower lip and looked thoughtful. Sam went on. “There’s another aspect to this which I don’t think any of us anticipated. It turns out that Reboul and Vial seem to be pretty good guys. We like them, and we wouldn’t want to see them in trouble, and possibly in jail. Am I right, Sophie?”

Sophie nodded. “I think it would be a shame.”

“Me, too.” Sam rubbed his eyes. They were beginning to feel gritty from his lack of sleep. “OK. Now, I spent most of last night on this, and I think it could work. Worth a try, anyway, because it has a lot going for it.” Sam counted off the points on his fingers. “Number one, it lets Reboul and Vial off the hook. Number two, it gives Philippe another, maybe better story-a mystery, and he would be in the middle of it. Number three, it means that Sophie and I will have done our job for the people at Knox Insurance. We’ll have tracked down the wine. There’s only one snag. Up till now, we haven’t committed any serious crime-perhaps a little harmless misrepresentation, that’s all. But what I have in mind is illegal.”

Philippe was back in his preferred position, perched on the edge of his seat, his feet starting to twitch. “How illegal?”

“I thought I’d steal the wine.”

Sophie laughed, and shook her head. “Mais c’est fou . You’re crazy.”

Philippe held up his hand. “Just a minute.” He looked behind him as he leaned forward, every inch the conspirator. Anyone watching would have marked him down instantly as a man discussing a guilty secret. His voice was little more than a whisper. “You’ve worked out how to do it?”

“Absolutely.”

Sophie had stopped laughing. “But Sam, we would be the obvious suspects. Reboul tells the police about this strange couple spending days in his cellar, and they find us, and then it is not him in jail. It’s us. No?”

Sam shook his head. “We could argue that what we’re doing here is to recover stolen property on behalf of the client of an international, highly reputable insurance company. Our methods are a bit unorthodox, that’s all. But more important: what’s Reboul going to say? Someone’s stolen the wine I stole? I don’t think so. No matter how good his lawyers are, he won’t want Interpol on his back. No, I’m pretty sure he’ll keep quiet.”

Philippe gave up chewing his lip to pour some more coffee. “Sam, you said something about a better story.” He looked at Sophie, and added quickly, “That is, if we decide to go ahead.”

“Right. It begins with that old favorite, the anonymous tip-off-you must have had dozens of them before. Sometimes the motive is revenge, sometimes it’s guilt, sometimes it’s just mischief. Anyway, you receive a call from a stranger. He refuses to identify himself. He tells you about an extraordinary cache of wine that has been left in a remote spot-we’ll come to that later-and he tells you that it has been stolen. Perhaps he’s stolen it himself and can’t unload it. But he doesn’t go into details. In fact, there are no other details. Just directions that lead to the hiding place. You don’t really believe him, but you go there. What a surprise: you find the wine, just as your anonymous caller said. And there’s chapter one of your story.”

Philippe nodded slowly. “Not a bad start. And I think I can see where it’s going.”

“I’m sure you can. You investigate. You call all your contacts. And little by little, maybe article by article, you pick up clues that lead you to Los Angeles, where you interview Danny Roth and get his take on how the wine was stolen: Christmas Eve, the crooked caretaker, the ambulance, everything. That part is clear. The other part-who stole the wine-remains an unsolved mystery; Reboul and Vial are left out of it.” Sam looked from Sophie to Philippe. “What do you think?”

“I like it,” said Philippe. “It could make a great series, like a feuilleton on television.” His feet danced a little jig of approval.

They both turned to look at Sophie.

It took some time to convince her that larceny was their best option. She tried to argue that they could just forget the whole thing and go home, but Sam reminded her it was too late for that: he had told Elena Morales. Knox International already knew the wine had been found, and they would follow up, with or without Sam. And so, after considerable soul-searching on Sophie’s part, it was agreed. They would steal the wine.

Philippe was able to provide the solution to the next problem, which was where the wine could be hidden. His grandmother had owned a farm and a few acres of land on the Claparèdes, an isolated area in the Luberon. When Philippe was growing up, he used to spend the summers there, a pleasant family tradition that ended when his grandmother died. Unfortunately, she had left no will, which provoked a bitter inheritance squabble-not uncommon in France-between relatives who thought they were entitled to the property. This had been going on for thirteen years so far, and showed no sign of resolution. Meanwhile, the farm was uninhabited and sadly neglected. None of the competing relatives was prepared to pay to maintain a property that might eventually go to someone else-an undeserving wretch of a cousin, for instance, or the universally detested Aunt Hortense. Apart from its extremely remote location, Philippe said, the property had the advantage of a good-sized cellar, where the wine could be kept without risk of deterioration.

“Sounds ideal,” said Sam. “Can you get in?”

“The key’s hidden under a stone behind the well. Or there’s a shutter that never worked on the kitchen window. One way or another, getting in won’t be a problem.”

“Fine. The next thing is transportation, and I don’t think your scooter’s going to be enough. Are you OK to drive a small van?”