The Hotel Riviera (9 page)

Miss N

“Young man!”

Miss Nightingale bore down on Jack, straw hat slammed firmly over her eyes and tied under her chin with a scrap of green ribbon that did not match the green of her safari outfit. Nor did it match her sensible sandals, the sort middle-aged English ladies have always worn on holidays: flat and beige, strapped around the ankle and good for walking on seaside promenades, or in this case, for strolling cobbled marketplaces in the south of France and riding a small Vespa along sandy hill roads.

“Young man,” she called again.

Jack pointed a finger to his chest. “Me?”

“Of course,
you
.” She was a little out of breath from her dash.

He grinned. “It's been a while since anyone called me a young man.”

Miss N pushed her glasses back up her aquiline nose. She looked him up and down. “Young enough. Exactly how old are you anyway?”

“Miss Nightingale,” Jack said with a sigh, “are you always this blunt?”

“Blunt?”

“I mean, do you always go around asking total strangers what they do for a living and where they're from and exactly how old they are? Next thing you'll want a copy of my bank statement.”

“Your finances are the last thing on my mind. What's more important is the state of Lola's head.”

“Who can blame her? It sounds like she might be arrested for the murder of her husband any minute.”

“Let's not count our chickens before they're hatched, Mr. Farrar. There's still no body.”

“There's no body
yet
.”

They stood looking at the massive yachts gleaming with brass, and the beautiful bronze people glittering with gold and jewels and very little else.

Jack shoved his hands in the pockets of his ancient shorts. “Saint-Tropez in the summer,” he said. “Good-looking women and men up to no good. Too much money and boats nobody loves. Most of 'em are rentals anyway. Nobody cares who built them, what they can do, only how big and expensive they are. There's not much ‘love' out there in the marina.”

Miss Nightingale shoved her hands in her pockets too. She thought he'd called it right. “Is that why you moored your sloop in the Hotel Rivera cove?”

“You mean, was it because I couldn't afford to join the world-class players here? Or did I just like it better there?”

“That's exactly what I meant. And I can see there's no use beating about the bush with you, Mr. Farrar. You're the kind that calls a spade a spade.”

She met his eyes frankly, assessing him the way he was assessing her. “You have nice eyes,” she said. “Blue like my Tom's, only his were more of a Nordic-blue. Kind of icy if I were truthful; to match his icy personality some said. He was never icy with me though, but then only I knew the
true
Tom. He was a shy man, you know, a loner, uncomfortable with his colleagues except when he was on the job. He was never one to prop up the bar with the boys after work, unless it was to talk about a case, of course. Though I don't get the feeling you're a shy man, Jack,” she added. “Just a bit of New England reserve, I'd guess. Anyhow, I don't mind your sizing me up. It's always good to know who you're dealing with, especially in tricky situations.”

“Who exactly
are
you, Miss Nightingale, behind that façade of the nice English lady?” Jack said with a smile, and Miss N thought that smile was the kind most women would find too seductive for their own good.

Jack asked Miss N if she'd fancy a little boat ride, then he apologized for calling her Miss N, and said he'd heard Lola call her that. “Somehow it fits,” he added. “Kinda Agatha Christie, everybody gathered in the library to find out if the butler did it.”

Miss N threw back her head, laughing delightedly. “That's just what my Tom said. A latter-day Miss Marples, he called me. The original one, in the books, he meant. Not that he was right, of course, it's just that I've always been nosy and that doesn't hurt when you're looking for criminals. It's amazing how people will talk: neighbors, friends, barmen.”

“But not in Lola's case. Seems nobody round here wants to talk, and if they know anything they're certainly not saying. Anyhow, Miss N, what d'ya say about that sail around the harbor? It's a bit of a walk, my dinghy's moored all the way at the end. I wouldn't have liked to see her tucked in with all these big boys, not quite her style.”

Miss N trusted her gut instinct with Jack Farrar: he was definitely better than he'd seemed at first sight. Of course, she'd had her doubts on the second sighting when she'd seen him hugging that sexy blonde so tightly she'd thought he might squeeze her right out of that tiny red top.

“Who's the blonde?” she asked, with her prim Queen smile. “Is she your girlfriend?”

Jack threw her a startled look, then he groaned. “The answer to that is Sugar is an
ex,
though I admit that's only of recent vintage.”

“Like ten minutes ago in Le Gorille? I must say that that certainly didn't look like a kiss-off hug to me.”

“And what exactly do you know about kiss-off hugs?”

He was getting exasperated, and Miss N let it go, even though it was important, because if Jack Farrar were going to get close to Lola, she needed to vet him first. There was no time for any more “mistakes” in Lola's life.

“You've got me there, young man,” she said. “And it's true I don't know much about goodbye kisses, but that's because I never had one. Never had boyfriends, you see. Tom was my first and only.”

Just speaking of Tom conjured the two of them sitting companionably in their pretty cottage garden as they often did after supper, watching the sunset. On evenings like these, Tom would finally be at ease with himself. They would slip off their shoes and socks and wiggle their bare toes in the grass, which Tom said, quite romantically for him, somehow made him feel at one with the earth. Or at least their own small part of it. She laughed at his huge feet, size fifteen. “Proper policeman's feet,” she teased, making him laugh too. He put on the woolly jumper she'd knitted, which he said was his favorite and that he wore to keep out that dratted north wind. “That wind will kill the tulips and one day it'll kill me,” he said one extra-chilly spring evening.

“Don't say that, Tom,” she cried, alarmed, unable to bear the thought of him dying even from so remote a possibility as the English spring wind. And he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and said thanks for worrying about me, darling Mollie, but no cold wind's ever going to carry me off—not as long as I've got you to knit jumpers for me and keep me warm in bed. Then he gave her the eye and said how about it, girl, gesturing to the narrow wooden stairs leading to their bedroom, smiling at her.

She swore she'd turned beet-red because she was always rather shy about things “like that.” Shy in a way that Jack Farrar and his gorgeous girlfriend would never have been, not in their entire lives.

But Tom had taught her a thing or two about sex as well as love. And knowing about sex, really understanding it as a primal urge, had helped in her detective “work” too; knowing how men felt about it and what they really thought about sex and women, and how often “love” was not even in the equation.

Sex was sex. Tom said it stood alone as the primary motivating force in murder. Nothing else touched it for a motive, not even money. And that's what she needed to talk to Jack about.

“How about it, Miss N,” Jack said again, and she came back to the present, startled. “The boat ride around the bay?” he added.

“Oh. Oh, of course,” she said, and she smiled, a very mischievous smile, because her head was still up in the past, in bed with Tom.

“I'm not made of Wedgwood china, you know,” she said as Jack helped her too carefully into the dinghy. She hated to be thought “old” when, inside, she was still that spring chicken.

“Sorry,” he said. Then, exasperated, “Between you and Lola I seem to have been saying ‘I'm sorry' all morning.”

Once they were out of the marina, Jack let out the throttle. Dangling a hand over the side, Miss N gazed into the clear turquoise water, enjoying the cool spray on her arm. In all her years of coming to the Côte d'Azur she had never once been
on
the water, only looked at it from the shore. Now she was enjoying herself.

Over the clatter of the little outboard, she shouted, “So how old are you anyway, Jack Farrar?”

“Bloody hell,” he said, sounding almost as English as Tom. “You never give up, do you.”

“My husband said that was one of my better characteristics.” She thought Jack was a really handsome man, especially when he laughed.

They were alongside the sloop now and Jack shut off the outboard, letting the dinghy drift astern. He grabbed the line trailing in the water, tugged the dinghy alongside, and secured it with what Miss N sincerely hoped was a good strong nautical knot.

“I'm forty-two, Miss N,” he said, climbing aboard the sloop. “Young enough.”

“Young enough for what?” she asked, innocent as a cherub.

He really laughed then, throwing back his head delightedly, as he helped her aboard. “I'm beginning to think you're a very wicked lady. And the answer is young enough for sex, love, and rock 'n' roll—in that order.”

“Well, of course I'd prefer to reverse the first two, but at least you included love.” She sat on a pile of coiled rope, beige-sandaled feet tucked neatly under her. She pushed her glasses up her nose, pushed up her sleeves, straightened her sunhat, and accepted Jack's offer of a cold drink. “Lemonade is fine, thank you,” she said.

“No lemonade. Coke, orange juice, Evian.”

“Evian will do nicely.”

She liked that he poured it into a glass for her and didn't just hand her a bottle as so many people did these days. Manners count, she'd always taught her Queen Wilhelmina's girls, and so does politeness; they smooth the rougher edges of our lives, keep us civilized.

“Now about Lola,” she said. “Or to be more exact—about Patrick.” She gave him a sharp look. “What d'you think's happened to him? Has he run off with another woman and left Lola in the lurch? Is it money trouble? Or is he dead?”

“There's only one answer to that,” Jack said. “He's dead. I feel it in my bones.”

“Hah! So do I. And my bones don't lie. And that, my dear Jack, leaves us with the dilemma of whether Patrick was murdered. And whether or not Lola did it.”

Jack took a long slug of the icy Stella Artois. “Do
you
think she did it?”

“Of course not. This is an outside job, and to tell you the truth I haven't any idea where to start looking for Patrick, or his killer. But there has to be a
motive.
Whoever killed Patrick had something to gain. This is no spur-of-the-moment crime of passion, it's too clean, too neat, and the body has been cleanly disposed of. It took the police six months just to find the car, which leads me to believe it was dumped in that Marseilles garage recently. No silver Porsche is just going to sit in a public garage space unnoticed for six months, now is it?”

Jack nodded in agreement. “I knew Patrick, of course,” she added. “I've been coming to the hotel ever since it opened. He was always in and out of the place. Handsome chap, a bit smooth, a lady-killer. And he loved that car almost as much as he loved himself. That Porsche gave him an image, a façade he presented to the world. That car
was
Patrick. Or at least he thought it was.”

“So, the car disappears, Patrick disappears, the carre appears…what next?”

Miss N leveled a look at him from behind her Queen Elizabeth glasses. “What do you think?”

Jack looked across the stretch of shining blue water at the Hotel Riviera. So beautiful, so peaceful; a place where a man could unwind and leave his daily cares behind, nurtured by a taffy-haired woman called Lola.

“I think Lola might be in danger,” he said quietly. “I feel that in my bones too.”

Miss N nodded. “I'm afraid you're right,” she said, but she was also thinking it would be jolly nice for Lola to have a man around the house. Especially one like Jack Farrar. “A girl couldn't ask for a better bodyguard,” she said.

Jack's eyebrows rose. “Me?”

“Who else?” She smiled. “And thank you for offering,” she added, leaving him totally bewildered, and somehow saddled with the responsibility for Lola Laforêt's safety.

Lola

Miss N had made arrangements to meet Jack Farrar for drinks and a “conference” here at the hotel at six-thirty, but I was afraid to look at the clock, ticking away the minutes, because it meant soon I would have to face reality, and somehow I knew it would not be good.

I wandered forlornly into the kitchen. Nadine took one look at my worried frown and said in French, “Is this going to become a habit then, this moping? Because if so it's highly unbecoming.”

“I have a headache,” I said. So she wrung out a cloth in ice water, sat me into a chair, and held it over my eyes. It was so damn cold I yelled at her and heard her laugh.

“Get your nerves together, Lola,” she said, “this is no time to fall to pieces. We have a dinner to produce. Besides,” she added curtly, “Patrick's not worth the tears.”

So I pulled myself together one more time and worked out my tensions preparing dinner.

I was in a frenzy of cooking, pounding my opinion of Detective Mercier in the mortar and pestle along with the tapenade, that earthy blend of olives, anchovies, tuna, capers, and oil that I would later serve with drinks. After that I put a batch of Roma tomatoes, halved and topped with a touch of garlic and a hint of thyme, salt and pepper, into a slow oven to melt down to a sugary sweetness, to be served on slices of oven-crisped foccacia, with a sprig of rosemary.

Marit was painstakingly cleaning the Saint-Pierre which I would cook quickly in a little butter, and serve with a sauce flavored with wine and fresh herbs. And before you ask, yes, like most French chefs, I do use cream and butter. Anyone visiting the Hotel Riviera must put away their city fears for a while and just indulge; after all, it's not going to put pounds on you in just a couple of weeks. Besides, that's what a vacation is all about.

Jean-Paul, moving fast for once, was cleaning the fruits and vegetables brought to our door, as they were every morning, by a local
maraîcher,
a market gardener. There were tiny carrots with the little tufts of green left on top; white radishes that crunched when you bit them; creamy baby cauliflower; zucchini the size of my pinky; and tiny beans, crisp as twigs. A pile of salad greens awaited his attention, plus the ingredients for the vinaigrette: olive oil from Monsieur Alziari in Nice—in my opinion quite simply the best; champagne vinegar from Reims; mustard from Dijon; salt from the sea; and peppercorns from Morocco—how I love their aroma when they are crushed. Add a clove of our local purple garlic and a little fine sugar to taste. Whisk it until it emulsifies—and you've got yourself a great salad.

I had to keep moving, keep working; I couldn't allow myself to think about Patrick. I slid Barry White onto the CD player and turned up the volume. Grabbing a knife I butchered the hell out of a leg of lamb, then I threw myself into preparations for dessert.

A clafoutis would be my special tonight, the easiest and tastiest of “puddings.” A simple batter made from flour, eggs, sugar, cream, and cherries or other fruits layered in the bottom of a gratin dish, a lathering of kirsch, a good sprinkling of sugar, then the batter poured on top. More shavings of butter layered on that and another sprinkle of sugar, then bake the whole thing in a 400-degree oven for about twenty-five minutes. This is best served just warm when the batter is custardy and the cherries pop in your mouth like little taste bombs.

I went outside and picked figs from my own trees. They were ripe and sweet, and I'd serve them simply with a little raspberry sorbet and a splash of raspberry eau de vie.

I whirled around that kitchen, throwing brownies together, wiping off tiled surfaces, inspecting work in progress. Finally, I walked out onto the terrace for a breather.

I paced, arms folded tightly across my chest, head down, not even glancing at the view, at least not at first, then my eyes slid sideways. The sloop swung gently at anchor with no sign of life on board. I thought of the Naked Man, aka Jack Farrar, and his sculptured Blonde taking a siesta together and felt a surprising pang of something I suspected was jealousy. Then I told myself, of course I couldn't be
jealous,
I hardly knew the man, I just envied his carefree lifestyle is all.

There was a familiar squawk as Scramble lumbered around the corner. I caught her in my arms, kissing her silken feathers, and she crooned a soft little hen-tune in my ear. “I love you, you funny little creature,” I said, smoothing her kissed feathers back into place. She gave me that sideways chicken look again and I asked myself one more time, was it really too much to believe that look meant “I love you too?”

Barry White's deep voice rumbled over the terrace. Was that man sexy or what? I wondered whether Jack Farrar could hear Barry singing about “lurve” and how he was “never gonna let you down, baby.” Oh, for a man like Barry, I sighed, just as my sweet honeymoon couple, the golden-headed pair of lovebirds themselves, appeared on the terrace.

“Are you all right, Lola?” Mr. Honeymoon asked.

“Of course we know what's going on,” Mrs. Honeymoon added sympathetically. “Everybody does. It's just we didn't like to mention it. But I can see you're upset. Has there been, I mean, you know…
bad news
?”

“Not that kind of bad news,” I said. “Just general bad news.”

Mr. Honeymoon's arm tightened around my shoulders. “Lola, my dad's a solicitor, an attorney you'd call him. He has associates in Paris and in Avignon. A lot of Brits have bought property in France and they're always in trouble, so he knows a lot about how things work here. If you need legal help, he's your man.”

They were so sweet, so concerned, and so staunch in their support. I thanked them, thinking for the second time that day how lucky I was to find I had friends and that I was not alone. Then I remembered. “Weren't you supposed to be going home today?”

“Of course we were, but we're enjoying ourselves so much we decided to stay another week,” Mr. Honeymoon said. “Nadine told us it was okay and that we could keep our room. I hope it's all right with you,” he added anxiously.

“All right? Why, that's wonderful,” I said. “This calls for more champagne. I'll send Jean-Paul out with it.”

I hurried back to my kitchen. Everything was immaculate, everything in its place, everything gleaming, in complete contrast to my perennially cluttered little house where I headed next, with its bunches of mixed flowers jammed into pots, and the branches and leaves I picked up on my walks tossed onto the hearth. The aroma of spilled scent permeated my bedroom and yesterday's clothing lay where I'd stepped out of it. A pair of sandals were kicked under the bed, the gold lamé curtains drooped, and the gardenia candles were burned down into stubs. I sighed, regretfully. It was the perfect metaphor for my life: the hotel, my kitchen. Perfect. My cottage, and my private life. A mess.

I told myself sternly I must get myself together. I must get my hair cut, get that pedicure, buy some new clothes. But then I gave myself the same old excuse: I was too busy, there was just no
time.

I stood under the shower, lifting my face to the cool water, rinsing away the fears. I thought this had been one of the strangest days of my life. But it was about to become even stranger.