The Corsican Caper by Peter Mayle Read Free Book Online Page B

festooned with wisteria, its shutters half-closed against the sun. The polished brass plaque on the front door announced that this was the headquarters of Verrine, Immobilier de Luxe, and in a glass-fronted display case on the wall next to the door were photographs of a dozen handsome properties, none of them with any indication of price. This, as Elena and Sam were to discover, was a delicate matter best left for discreet conversation.
    While they were looking at the photographs, the front door swung open, and there, in all her considerable glory, was Madame Verrine herself, the agent, who complimented Elena and Sam on their punctuality, which, as she said, was not normal in Provence. Later, Elena would describe Madame Verrine as a ship in full sail—tall, buxom, in her fifties, her considerable size draped in billows of brightly colored silk, her neck and wrists twinkling with gold jewelry, her plump face a testament to the rejuvenating properties of good cosmetic surgery.
    “OK,” she said as she led the way into her office. “You are American, yes? So we speak English.” She waved them into two armchairs before arranging herself at her desk.
    “That would be great for me,” said Elena.
    “No problem. Here in Gordes, English is the second language. So, first I must ask if you have a budget.”
    “It’s very flexible,” said Sam. “Depends on what we see. As you know, buying a house is an emotional business. If we fall in love with something—well, the sky’s the limit. Let’s not worry about money.”
    Money was exactly what Madame Verrine wanted to worry about, but she bore the disappointment with a brave face, opened a thick album and placed it in front of them. “These are some of my properties,” she said, tapping the first few photographs with a crimson talon. “Stop me when you see something that interests you.” But that was easier said than done. She took off, her descriptive juices flowing, on asales pitch that defied interruption. As Reboul had predicted, there was
charme fou
in abundance, closely followed by houses with extraordinary potential, houses offering wonderful investment opportunities, houses owned by celebrities trading up or divorced couples trading down. They were all, without exception,
affaires à saisir
, to be snapped up before July and August, when the hot money came down from Paris and people would be fighting—literally
fighting
—over such highly desirable properties.
    At the end of the morning, reeling from Madame Verrine’s nonstop barrage, they made their escape, promising to think things over and get back to her.
    “Wow,” said Elena, “my first French real estate agent. Do you think they’re all like that?”
    “It’s a very competitive business. I’ve seen five agencies right here in the village. So I guess you need to be pushy by nature. If you’re not, you should go into something easier, like crime. Now, shall we try that place Philippe suggested for lunch?”
    La Vieille Grange, after fifty years of service as a storage barn and tractor garage, had been taken over by a young couple, Karine and Marc, and transformed into a restaurant of the old-fashioned kind: a short, modestly priced menu of fresh, local produce, local wines and cheeses, and a total absence of pretension. Any waiter wearing white gloves would have felt deeply uncomfortable. In fact, the waiter’s job was already taken by Karine’s uncle Joseph.
    The building, long and low, was at the end of a narrow dirt track that led off the road linking the villages of Lourmarin and Lauris, on the more peaceful south side of the Luberon. A frequent passer-by might have noticed that every lunchtime the field next to the barn was crowded with cars, which spoke well of Marc’s cooking.
    Sam parked the car next to an elderly Renault and noticed, as they made their way toward the barn, the absence of large shiny cars or foreign license plates. It seemed that this was very much a place for locals. And