Monsieur Pamplemousse on Vacation by Michael Bond Read Free Book Online

phone number, just the minimal address scribbled ona piece of lined paper torn from a notepad. He didn’t even recognise the handwriting. It certainly wasn’t the Director’s.
    A line of schoolchildren snaking their way past nudged each other. One, braver than the rest, placed a sticky finger over the autoroute to Cannes as he went past.
    ‘Vous êtes ici, Monsieur,’ he called, and they hurried on their way laughing happily.
    Monsieur Pamplemousse wondered what would have happened to the boy had he tried it on with Madame Ségurene. Probably another bottom would have been bared that morning, and it wouldn’t have been hers.
    He found the address he was looking for, sandwiched between a garage and a builder’s yard at the end of an alleyway not far from the antique market in the ‘Village Ségurene’. But this time his luck ran out. A roll-top shutter was in place over the front. The lock securing it looked new. On the other hand, if the other establishments in the immediate neighbourhood were anything to go by, most of them, including the garage, must do their business later in the day.
    He tried banging on the shutter but there was no reply. While he was debating what to do next, a black Mercedes drew up at the end of the alleyway and a man got out. Dressed in plain clothes, he nevertheless reeked Police Judiciaire . There was something vaguely familiar about him, and his feigned surprise at seeingMonsieur Pamplemousse wouldn’t have won him any prizes at the Comédie-Française.
    Greetings exchanged, a gentle probe began. ‘What brings you to this part of the world? Don’t tell me you are in the antiques business now.’
    Monsieur Pamplemousse was non-committal. ‘I am looking into a certain matter for someone.’
    The response was equally cryptic. ‘Once a flic – always a flic , eh?’
    ‘Alors!’ Monsieur Pamplemousse gave a shrug. ‘So the saying goes.’ Having no wish to prolong the conversation, he glanced pointedly at his watch, then held out his hand. He received a firm shake in return.
    ‘Au revoir. Take care how you go.’ There was no offer of a lift.
    As he made his way slowly down towards the harbour Monsieur Pamplemousse puzzled over the last remark. It could simply have been a question of territories, but it had also sounded remarkably like a serious warning. Or a straightforward threat! He wondered, too, about the Mercedes with its conspicuously anonymous dark glass windows, behind which he had seen the outline of the man already making a phone call as the car moved away.
    Leaving the main port with its array of luxury yachts behind, he crossed over the rue de Foresta and stopped for a moment or two in a little park overlooking the commercial harbour. A cargo boat with an Amsterdam registration was being loaded. It looked huge to his eyes. 5,000 tonnes? 10,000? Hehad no idea. Truffert, another of his colleagues, would have known. He had spent most of his life at sea before joining Le Guide .
    Whatever the tonnage was now, it would be considerably more by the time it set sail. As far as the eye could see the quay was lined with huge white bags of cement and more were arriving by the minute. Each one must weigh a tonne or more. The ship was riding high out of the water and each time its crane reached over the side to hoist another load on board – ten bags at a time – there was a distinct roll.
    It was like watching a ballet, and as so often happened when thoughts ran free he found himself back at the antique shop.
    Why would anyone want to put him off? And had the officer arrived by chance? It was almost as though he’d been waiting round the corner expecting someone to turn up.
    At the far end of the quay a ferry arrived from Corsica and almost immediately began to disgorge its load; cars and vans rather than cabin trunks. Air transport had taken away a lot of the romance of travel, and with it the excitement of arriving in a strange port at a leisurely pace. Nowadays the shock of