The Marseille Caper

She chewed, she swallowed, her eyes opened wide. “Mmm,” she said. “More.”

One minor drawback of bouillabaisse is that it takes up so much of the eaters’ concentrated attention that simple speech is often difficult, let alone the cut and thrust of spirited conversation. And so this first part of their meal passed with little more than small sounds of pleasure. It wasn’t until the debris had been cleared away and fresh napkins provided that they could lean back and talk to one another again.

Sam was the first to break the contented silence. “Have you made that wish?”

“Right now? I think my wish would be to stay like this, a long way away from the insurance business, crooked clients, pompous executives, endless meetings, L.A. smog, desk lunches-in other words, away from real life.” She put down the menu she’d been studying, and grinned. “But for the time being, I’ll settle for the black-and-white ice cream.”

They lingered over their coffee, watching the seagulls swooping low over the terrace in search of scraps. A long, sunny afternoon lay ahead, and they were comparing the merits of a boat trip to the calanques with the lure of the pool when Sam’s phone rang.

Real life was on the line, in the form of Jerome Patrimonio’s secretary. It was necessary, so she said, for Sam to come at once to the office for an urgent and important meeting with Monsieur Patrimonio. Sam sighed and shook his head as he put down the phone. He had probably forgotten to dot an i or cross a t on one of the seemingly endless documents that had to be presented with the bid.

But when he arrived at Patrimonio’s office, the great man clearly had more pressing matters on his mind, and Sam had barely taken his seat before Patrimonio shot his cuffs and got down to business.

“This affair of the tent,” he said. “It is, I’m afraid, unacceptable. Completely unacceptable. We cannot have Marseille’s public spaces used to promote commercial interests.”

“Why not?” said Sam. “This is a development that will benefit the city and the people who live here.”

“That may be so. But you must agree that you are trying to create an unfair advantage for yourself over the other two bidders.”

“I thought that’s what business was all about. In any case, there is nothing to stop them using other public spaces for their presentations-the O.M. stadium, for instance. Or La Vieille Charite, which I seem to remember you yourself used.”

Patrimonio shot his cuffs with a violence that threatened to rip his shirtsleeves off. “Altogether different,” he said. “And you have chosen to ignore the crucial matter of permissions.” He sat back in his chair and nodded with considerable emphasis, as though he had just scored a definitive victory. “Without my permission, this scheme of yours cannot go ahead. Point final. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another meeting.”

Sam resisted the impulse to shoot his own cuffs in reply. “You didn’t give me the chance to tell you,” he said. “But I do have permission. From the mayor. Your boss.”

Thirteen

“I don’t believe this. He’s got permission from the mayor? Have you checked?” Lord Wapping took his half- smoked cigar-a Cohiba, he liked to tell people, fifteen quid apiece-and crushed it to death in the ashtray.

“It’s true,” said Patrimonio. “I regret infinitely, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“As per bloody usual. And I thought you had the whole thing sewn up. But no. First the journalist and now this. What about the mayor? Is he for sale?”

Patrimonio thought about the mayor’s irreproachable record, his constant efforts to reduce crime, his loathing of corruption. “I think it would be most unwise to try anything with the mayor. That would immediately destroy our chances.”

“What about that other place? Have you got that sorted out?”

“Of course. No problem.”

“That makes a change.” Wapping put down the phone and tried to relight the remains of his cigar. As soon as he had heard about the tent on the beach, he had told Patrimonio to find an equally unusual setting for his presentation, and a renovated grain silo down near the port had been suggested. It wouldn’t attract the publicity of the tent, but it was certainly better than the Parisian team’s choice of the conference room in a Marseille hotel, where their presentation was being held that afternoon.

His Lordship brooded. He was running out of time, and he was running out of excuses to fend off the banks. Desperate measures were called for. He summoned Ray Prendergast, and went over the situation with him.

Prendergast listened and nodded, looking more than ever like an attentive gnome. “What we have here, Billy,” he said as Wapping finished his tale of woe, “is an opportunity to think outside the box. Now then, when is Levitt’s presentation? Day after tomorrow, right? So there’s not time to start all over again if an accident should happen.”

“Who to?”

“Not who to, Billy. Not this time. I was thinking of something more along the lines of a natural catastrophe- Brian and Dave and a box of matches. Very careless with the matches, our Dave. And what happens? Guy Fawkes’s night with all the fireworks, that’s what. Whoops, the tent goes up in flames, and so does the presentation.”

The idea appealed to Wapping instantly. It was crude, simple, and menacing, like some of the stunts he’d pulled in the old days. Besides, time was short and there weren’t many options. He nodded. “All right, Ray. We’ll give it a go. Wait until the last minute-tomorrow night. Don’t let them have a chance to find another tent.”

In addition to all his other responsibilities, Gaston had been given the task of finding an interpreter to help with Sam’s presentation. Most of the project committee spoke some English, but Sam was anxious that nobody should miss any important details.

Two candidates had survived Gaston’s selection process, and Sam had arranged to interview them at the house. Elena was standing by, more out of curiosity than a sense of duty, to welcome the two hopefuls. The first was a young Frenchwoman in her twenties, Mademoiselle Silvestre, and it was instantly clear why Gaston had picked her. Despite the black dress and the attache case, there was more than a hint of the bedroom about her, accentuated by her perfume, the height of her heels, and the elaborate way in which she adjusted her skirt and crossed her legs after she’d sat down.

Sam swallowed hard and started to go through his list of questions. Yes, she was bilingual, and yes, she was available for the evening of the presentation. When he asked her how she had learned to speak such good English, she smiled.

“Perhaps you’d like to see my curriculum vitae,” she said, making it sound more like an invitation to a romp than a question. She took the papers from her attache case and leaned over to pass them to Sam, treating him to a heady whiff of perfume and a most unbusinesslike panorama of bosom.

“Looks good,” he said. “I’ll read this and get back to you.”

Elena came back after showing her out. “That’s the kind of girl who would sit on your lap to take dictation.”

“How can you tell?”

Elena sniffed. “Women know these things. The other one’s just arrived. Much more suitable.”

Miss Perkins, a regal woman of a certain age, had worked in the liaison department of the British Consulate in Marseille for twenty years before it was shut down. She wore a starched white blouse fastened at the neck with a cameo brooch, and what she would describe as a sensible skirt and shoes. She immediately took charge of the interview.

“Would you prefer that we talked in English or in French? I imagine you’re more comfortable if we use English.”

“You’re right. Let’s do that. I guess Gaston will have told you what we need? The project committee is not all that fluent in English, and I’d like our presentation to be as clear and professional as possible. That will obviously