A Twist of Orchids (26 page)

“It wasn’t nice,” he said to his dog, who moaned and laid a mournful head in his lap. “I’d say a few home truths were exchanged, wouldn’t you? That remark about orchids was really below the belt.” Bismuth followed the rise and fall of the fork
between the plate and Julian’s mouth with rapt attention. The mutt had already had his breakfast, but Julian gave in anyway and slid a remaining egg into Bismuth’s feed dish.

He poured himself a refill of well-sweetened tea and went to stand in the open doorway giving onto his back garden, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine on his face. The light covered everything—trees, leaves, grass—in a mantle of distilled gold.

The phone rang. He suspected it was Mara, and for some reason, perhaps because the sun was also dancing in his head, he let it go on ringing until his answering machine cut in.

“Julian”—her disembodied voice rang through the cottage—“look, I’m sorry I laughed. Nerves, I expect. And Joseph apologizes, too. He said the booby trap was for the monster. Are you all right? …”

“I am now,” he told Bismuth, who joined him in the sun. Julian poured himself a third mug of tea and sat down on his back stoop, awash with a sense of utter contentment.

But the moment did not last. Gradually, an awkward realization began to thump, like a bumblebee, against the window of his mind: now that he was home, he did not want to leave.
Merde
, it wasn’t just death threats, falling objects, the Furniture Polish Gestapo, or even the lack of a decent chair to fit his body that had made him seek refuge in Grissac. It was—and this was the awkward and disturbing part—Mara herself.

Why this should be was a bit complicated to work out. He cared deeply for her, wanted, curiously enough, her pushy presence in his life. Unbidden, a scent of sandalwood rose in his nostrils. But her constant talk about moving forward was making him uneasy.

“What’s wrong with staying as we are?” he asked Bismuth, and since the dog was on his back, belly in the air, with his eyes closed, he addressed the fig tree by his door. “I hope to God she isn’t expecting marriage.”

It was something they didn’t discuss, as if they had a tacit understanding that marriage was a thing neither of them favored. But holy Christ, was she starting to get ideas? The thought put him in a cold funk and almost made him spill his tea.

“You don’t repeat a bad experience,” he told the grass. “And it’s damned hard to make yourself over after more than a quarter-century of living on your own, give or take a few short-lived affairs.”

But it was more than that, he knew. It was a question of privacy.

“I suppose”—he addressed his feet now—“I’m what you’d call a deeply private person. I have my secrets—who doesn’t?—and I’d like to keep them that way.”

He gazed off into the middle distance. “But she always wants to talk. About us. Our relationship. It makes her nervous when I don’t open up. Bloody hell, it’s just a matter of time, isn’t it? She’s a ferret. They nose things out.” Proximity forced disclosure. He pictured those clever paws of hers at work, picking apart the padlocks of his entangled heart.

“No,” he concluded unhappily. “Staying as we are isn’t an option anymore. We’ve reached a point where I’m either going to have to back out or throw open the bloody door and let her in.” He found himself thinking wistfully of a time, not that long ago, when he and Mara had merely dated.

Sadly he tickled Bismuth’s belly. “Maybe I should just stick to what I do best. Landscaping and, now that spring is finally here, beating the bushes for
Cypripedium incognitum.
”

But he did remember a little later to phone the gendarmerie in Brames to tell the duty officer that Osman had been beaten up, that Betul thought drugs were involved, that Ismet’s life had been threatened, as had his own, and that Adjudant Compagnon ought to do something about it.

•

The storm had one benefit. The night had passed without another housebreaking. In any case, Jacques Compagnon’s mind was not on the rhyming burglar. He stood before his gendarmes in the cramped meeting room, hands behind his back, rocking slowly back and forth, toe to heel, which meant that he had something important to say. His eyes glinted with suppressed excitement.

“The situation is coming to a head. At last we have a case. We’ve been informed by Monsieur Wood”—he shook his head irritably, as if chasing off a pesky fly; the Englishman was too much in the picture for his liking—“that Osman Ismet was roughed up yesterday by two unidentified thugs. Ismet claims it was another racist attack and refused to report the incident. However, his wife told Monsieur Wood that the perpetrators threatened her husband’s life and that of Monsieur Wood as well. She thinks the attack has something to do with drugs. I’m betting Luca was behind it.”

“And Serge Taussat, sir?” asked Albert.

“No. Ton-and-a-Half wouldn’t have used Serge for this job. Not yet, anyway. This was just a warning. Goons’ work. Punching someone in the head and leaving him to walk away isn’t Taussat’s trademark.”

Compagnon did his three strides across the front of the room and swung about to face his team.

“All this tells us what we should have realized from the beginning: Osman Ismet is a player in Luca’s network. The Ismets import foodstuffs from Turkey all the time. Lokum is a natural cover for bringing in drugs.” He gave a bitter laugh. “You have to hand it to the old fox. He kept us focusing on Toulouse while the hot spot was right under our very noses.”

Albert dug Laurent in the ribs. “Like Narbonne Plage. What did I tell you?”

Compagnon went on, “So now the break-in at the store and the death of the son take on a different perspective. As I’ve always suspected, Kazim was working for Luca and failed to deliver. But the Lokum trashing wasn’t a warning as I originally thought. It was Luca looking for a shipment. Kazim’s death was the warning. To Osman Ismet. Do as you’re told or else.”

Laurent shifted in his chair. His body was too long and gangly for most furniture. He sat with his knees poking up, but physical discomfort was not his problem at the moment. He spoke out unhappily: “
Mon adjudant
, when we went to the store after the trashing, I had the impression the parents really didn’t know what was going on. I think only the son was in on it.”

Compagnon shook his head. “Maybe Kazim was the point man here. But if he was involved, there’s a good chance the parents were as well. At least the father. And we have to go with the odds. The question is, what’s happened to precipitate the roughing up?” Compagnon scanned the row of intent faces before him.

Lucie Sauret spoke up. “Maybe Ismet has turned uncooperative, sir. If Luca had Kazim eliminated, Ismet will want revenge. Say he refuses to let his shop be used any longer as a front. But Luca needs Lokum to remain intact. So he sends in his heavies.”

Compagnon nodded his approval. “Right. Next question: why now?”

Lucie again: “Because Ton-and-a-Half is expecting another delivery of goods?”

“
Et voilà!
” beamed the brigade commander, rising up on the balls of his feet. He set off striding in the other direction. “I don’t have to tell you this is just the development we’ve been waiting for. We’re in business. I’ve got authorization to tap Ismet’s and Luca’s phones. Customs and the drug squad are also being put in the loop. We don’t know when or where the delivery will arrive,
or by what means. It could be a clandestine coastal drop or smuggled in by truck, train, or air. Hopefully the phone taps will give us a heads-up. My guess is that Luca will somehow involve Lokum, so anything coming in for the shop at any port of entry will be screened by sniffer dogs. If drugs are detected, the shipment will be allowed to go through. Then it will be a matter of tracking what happens to it from there. Unfortunately, from that point, the action will be out of our hands. Luca’s men will undoubtedly receive the delivery, and it will be up to the drug squad to catch them at it. Our job will be to keep Luca himself and the Ismets and their shop under surveillance and act on anything suspicious.”

The adjudant’s chest rose and fell heavily. He would have liked nothing more than to be in on a major drug bust that would nail Rocco Luca, but as usual, he and his officers were assigned the backup jobs.

Laurent spoke up: “You say we’ll have Ismet under surveillance, sir, but what about Monsieur Wood? His life’s been threatened, too. Shouldn’t we—er—be offering some kind of protection?”

Compagnon shook his head. “Done, Laurent, but he declined. Just as well, since I don’t have any gendarmes to spare. However, he’s agreed to steer clear of the shop and to keep a low profile. As long as he stays down, I doubt Luca will jeopardize his operation to silence Julian Wood. Now, before I go any further, are there any questions?”

A couple of hands shot up.

“Let’s just hope Ton-and-a-Half sees it that way,” Laurent muttered to Albert.

Tuesday morning found Julian, rucksack slung over his shoulder, walking down a woodland path. He had spent the last couple of days cleaning up the detritus of the storm on his own and several clients’ properties. Today was the first free time he’d had. The earth was still soggy underfoot, but the rain, followed by plentiful sunshine, had unleashed a riot of greenery. Grasses and wild-flowers grew lush in meadows and roadsides. Vines put out sturdy tendrils. Bismuth ran happy circles around him, now appearing ahead of him, now thundering up from behind.

There were only so many ways of finding a flower, he reflected. First, you had to look at the right time of year. Mara’s sister Bedie had photographed
Cypripedium incognitum
in early May. It was now the twenty-sixth of April, a little soon for his orchid, perhaps, but the past few weeks of warmth and plentiful rain had brought things on rapidly.

Second, you had to look in the right places. He had two leads. One was the grounds of the Château of Les Colombes, where Bedie had taken her photograph. He had already searched the area thoroughly with no results, but would search it again this spring, just in case he had missed something on the last pass or in case his orchid chose to bloom sporadically. The other was here on Aurillac Ridge, a wooded spine rising above the Sigoulane Valley. The orchid embroidery that he had mentioned in his book had come from nearby Aurillac Manor. Very few people knew this, and Julian had sworn to secrecy those
who did. He prayed that Géraud had not yet got wind of Aurillac Ridge.

The problem was that both locations represented extensive stretches of woodland, forest, and meadow. One could, if one had unlimited time and willing bodies, superimpose a grid over these areas and send out an army of people to scour each square of the grid. At the moment, Julian had only himself and sometimes Mara, if she were in the mood and not busy tearing down walls.

Third, if you didn’t know specific places to search, you could focus on likely growing environments. Some orchids required wetlands. Others liked fields, or open woods, or rough, elevated scree. Julian had no information on the kind of habitat
Cypripedium incognitum
preferred, but he guessed cool, partial shade and higher ground. That was why he was concentrating on this north-facing section of Aurillac Ridge.

Of course, the easiest way to find a flower was to draw on local knowledge, ask someone to take you to it. But it was not that simple. Julian had asked and been told that a plant resembling his orchid called Devil’s Clog had once grown in the environs. Unfortunately, those who knew where to find it were long dead. However, he did have one puzzling but useful piece of information: years ago people had dug up Devil’s Clog wherever they encountered it and planted Aconite in its place. Despite the horrible possibility that all the Devil’s Clog in the area had been destroyed in this way, it at least gave Julian two things to look for: the orchid itself and either of two species of Aconite, Monkshood or Wolfsbane, to use their common names.

Finally, there was luck. When you weren’t particularly looking for something, or when you least expected to find it, there it was, poking up between your feet. So far, he had not been lucky.

Bismuth, who had been gone a long time, reappeared looking muddy.

“Digging for moles again?” Julian grumbled.

As he walked, scanning either side of him, he was aware that his attention was not fully on his search. The Ismets kept surfacing like a murky bubble of doubt. Although he did not know it, he was slowly arriving at the same conclusions as Adjudant Compagnon. Or rather, he was asking himself the questions that could lead to those conclusions. Was there more to Osman than Elan and baklava? Julian didn’t want to credit it, but the father, like the son, could be in the drug trade. Although salep was not of the same order of criminality as heroin, Osman had no scruples about bringing in the former, so why not the latter? Turkey was the drug gateway into Europe, after all. And what of Betul? Had she known, or suspected, all along what her husband and Kazim were up to? Was that why she had wanted him, rather than the police, to find Kazim? Had even she been using him?

All these possibilities left him feeling flat. He realized how futile and puny even his best efforts were against the might of drug trafficking and organized crime. Like that oak over there, so heavily smothered in ivy that its true form could not be distinguished. A few branches reached weakly for sunlight out of the creeping mass, but it was a struggle the oak would not win. Julian took out his Swiss Army knife and began hacking away at the ivy, tearing it down with his hands. That, too, was futile. The lifeline of the vine was as thick as his wrist and ferocious in its stranglehold on the tree. He needed an axe. He had not been able to help Kazim, and he could do nothing for this tree.
C’est la vie.
Apologetically, Julian closed his knife and continued on his way.

There were other things on his mind as well. Mara, of course. And he still had Géraud and Adelheid to deal with. Only the night before he had spoken with Iris, who had told him that Géraud had asked her to pump him on where and how he intended to resume his search. Julian had thought for a moment and said that he had
found an orchid-rich site up in the north of the region near Cercles that he thought looked extremely promising. It was a poor ruse, but he hoped it would keep the old poacher out of his way for the next month.