The proprietor of Videos Extraordinaires crawled out from his back parlour like a great fat slug. He didn’t look best pleased at having been disturbed. Pointedly taking his time, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, slowly filling the space behind the tiny counter before deigning to examine the cassette.
‘Monsieur does not have the camera with him?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse confessed he hadn’t. The last time he had seen it had been in the shower with Abeille, at which point his mind had been on other things.
The admission met with a prolonged intake of breath between yellowing teeth. ‘It is VHS-C. To play this size of tape in a normal VHS recorder will require a special cassette adapter.’
‘And you do not have one?’
‘I have one, Monsieur,’ the man pointed to a shelf on the wall behind him, ‘but it is new and boxed. Once the box has been opened it will no longer be new.’
Holding the bag of escargots with one hand, Monsieur Pamplemousse went through the motions of groping inside his cape with the other, but any hopes he might have nursed that the man wouldn’t want to see the colour of his money fell on stony ground.
‘And if I decide to purchase one, may I view the tape in your shop?’
‘Naturellement, Monsieur.’ Having first completed the washing of his hands in invisible soap, the man pressed a key on his cash till. A flap bearing the figure 400fr appeared behind a window. His finger hovered over the NO SALE key. It was the price of progress – take it or leave it.
While the tape was being loaded Monsieur Pamplemousse took the opportunity to explore other avenues.
‘I am told it is unusual in this part of the world to find a village with shops.’
‘The winters can be hard, Monsieur. People need things to occupy their time, otherwise it hangs heavy on their hands. Both Dijon and Beaune are impossible to reach when the snow is bad.’
‘Would there be anywhere I could buy a present for a lady? A clothes shop, par exemple?’
The man waved vaguely towards the far side of the place. ‘Monsieur should try Paris Modes.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse had half expected as much. His spirits fell at the thought of Abeille’s reaction.
They perked up again as a television receiver on the far side of the shop sprang to life. Viewed on a Philips 84 cm screen, the shots of the previous evening’s pageant positively leapt out at him; colour gave the tape another dimension; 40 watts of hifi stereophonic sound, relayed through a battery of speakers and sub woofers, added yet a third. If there had been room in the shop to stand back without coming up against racks of video cassettes, batteries, plugs, cables and sundry other items, the overall effect could hardly have been improved had the tape been projected in a cinema on the Champs Elysées.
It began where he had left off earlier in the day, so he asked the man to rewind it slightly, stopping him at a point shortly before Vert-Vert’s arrival in Nantes.
Seeing the candlelit corridors of the cellars, Monsieur Pamplemousse found himself comparing them with the catacombs in Paris, that depository of ancient remains, where femurs and tibias rather than bottles of Burgundy were neatly stacked along the walls. During the war the catacomb’s labyrinth of tunnels had been put to good use by members of the Resistance, who had used it as their headquarters. In much the same way, it would be possible for a person to come and go unobserved for hours on end in the cellars below the negociants’ offices in Beaune; a fact which was convincingly demonstrated a few moments later as Abeille panned away from the group of nuns to see the ship arriving, then almost immediately panned back again.
As he watched Monsieur Pamplemousse realised something he hadn’t noticed before. During the time it took to complete the movement – perhaps all of ten seconds – the twelve nuns became thirteen. Until that moment he had assumed there had been thirteen nuns right from the start. He could have kicked himself for not checking something so basic. It only went to show that one should never take anything for granted. It also meant that the person infiltrating the group must have done so for not much more than a minute or so at the most.
He watched the pageant unfold: the camera zooming out to include the parrot, the moment when Vert-Vert took off and fluttered into the air, faltered for a second, then plummeted down to the bottom of the frame as Abeille zoomed in for a close-up. He had seen the latter half before, of course, and was prepared, but on the larger screen when the camera panned back to the group, it was obvious there were now only twelve. He wondered if the thirteenth person had been watching Abeille and whoever it was had seized their chance to come and go while she was pointing the camera away from them, or whether it had been sheer luck rather than good timing.
‘Excusez-moi, Monsieur.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse picked up the remote controller and ran the tape back until it reached the point where the extra nun appeared for the first time, then pressed the button marked still frame. Magnified in colour on the giant screen the picture revealed something else he hadn’t spotted earlier. Protruding at around waist level from the habit of the new arrival, blued metal against dark grey, was the unmistakable business end of a gun.
Monsieur Pamplemousse stared at it for a long while. It put an entirely different complexion on things. Far from Vert-Vert having got in the way of a shot fired by someone in the audience, it looked as though the reverse must have happened.
He would have given anything to have been blessed with X-ray eyes so that he could see through the habit – or better still, ten seconds with an X-ray machine at an airport in order to make a positive identification of the weapon. It looked more like an air gun than the kind of revolver one might have expected; possibly, from the partridge style front sight, a single shot Crossman target pistol operated by compressed air. That would explain why no one had heard a shot being fired or seen any kind of flash. Five to ten metres would be the kind of distance within which accuracy could be controlled. Wind effect would be non-existent. All the same, it was hardly a serious murder weapon.
Unless …
The angle from which the scene had been filmed made it impossible to calculate precisely where the gun had been aimed. All that could be said for certain was that from the tilt of the barrel any shot had to hit somebody in the front row; it might have been aimed at any one of the group seated in the middle.
Releasing the still frame button before the shop owner had time to register what he was looking at, Monsieur Pamplemousse re-ran the sequence where the parrot took off. It was impossible to tell exactly what had caused it to panic. The noise of the crowd? Possibly.
Pommes Frites’ sudden lunge? That, too, was a possibility.
The squawk it uttered before it fell was barely audible above the sound of cheering.
Perhaps it had simply been a case of some sixth sense warning the bird of impending danger. Once again, for the moment at least, the point was academic.
The plain inescapable fact was that someone disguised as a nun had fired a gun at a member of the audience and by a million to one chance the parrot had got in the way. One bird’s misfortune was someone else’s good luck. The 64,000 dollar, three in one question was: who fired the shot, at whom and why? The answer to any one of them would help answer the other two.
‘Would Monsieur like to see the tape again from the start? There is no extra charge.’
Clearly the shop owner was getting more and more intrigued with the whole thing.
‘S’il vous plaît.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse waited while the tape was being rewound. He hadn’t the least idea what he was looking for, but it struck him that he might as well get his 400 francs worth while he had the chance.
As the man set the video machine running again Monsieur Pamplemousse gave a start. He had totally forgotten the footage at the beginning of the tape. The forest he had registered on first viewing the tape looked totally different blown up and reproduced in full colour.
White trees metamorphosed into undulating limbs patently made of flesh and blood. That someone was doing something to someone else was obvious, but quite what was hard to say. The picture was distorted through the use of a wide-angle lens in extreme close-up. Much of it was going in and out of focus, and for the same reason the sound, although it came and went, at times sounding like a gale force wind, was clearly brought about by heavy breathing in close proximity to the camera’s built-in microphone.
A large cigar seemed to play an important part in the proceedings, for the glowing end appeared from time to time as smoke billowed forth from most unlikely places.
For ‘someone in communications’, thought Monsieur Pamplemousse, read ‘porno movies’. You could argue that it was communication of a sort.
By now thoroughly roused from his post-prandial torpor, the shopkeeper reached for the remote controller. As he turned up the brightness he looked back over his shoulder.
‘I am a non-smoker,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, anticipating the question.
Having denied his role as performer, it struck him that he might well be under suspicion of having operated the camera. He wondered about Abeille. From his limited observation he could vouch for the fact that she wasn’t playing a starring role in the picture.
Crouching down in front of the video player, he overrode the remote control by pressing the STOP button, followed by EJECT. As the cassette popped out he quickly withdrew it before the shop owner had time to stop him. He looked the kind of person who might try and confiscate the tape for his own purposes.
‘Perhaps Monsieur would like to view it again in comfort?’ Sweaty hands resumed their washing in invisible soap mode.
‘Non,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘I have seen enough.’
‘I run a copying service in the back room, Monsieur. It is possible we could do a deal. There are other things which might interest you. I have a selection of films and there is a private viewing theatre.’
‘Non,’ repeated Monsieur Pamplemousse firmly.
Having removed the miniature cassette from its holder, he reached inside his cape and slipped it into his trouser leg pocket alongside the notebook and the envelope Fabrice had given him.
Looking the other straight in the eye, he held up the empty adapter. ‘Would you be interested in buying one of these?’ he enquired. ‘Mint condition. Used once only.’
The man shook his head. ‘There is no call for them.’
‘That is a pity,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘I was hoping I might persuade the police to take a lenient view of your duplicating facilities when I talk to them. Alas …’
Four one hundred franc notes appeared as if by magic from the till. The man laid them on the counter as though hardly trusting himself to hand them over personally.
‘Next time Monsieur wishes to view such films I suggest he buys his own equipment.’
Out of the corner of his eye Monsieur Pamplemousse caught sight of a woman with a small child sheltering in the doorway. There were two patches of steam on the glass; one above the other. The child asked a question and received a clip round the ear for its pains.
‘And I suggest, Monsieur, that next time you wish to show such films in your shop you make sure the blinds are drawn, otherwise you may find yourself in trouble under the corruption of minors section of the Code Civile.’
Closing the door behind him with a satisfactory bang, Monsieur Pamplemousse nodded a brief apology to the woman and made his way across the deserted place. He felt three pairs of eyes boring into his back. If the truth be known, there were probably others as well. Doubtless half the village had viewed the tape via cracks in blinds and shutters. And if they hadn’t, word would soon get around. It was the kind of place where very little would pass unnoticed. The bush telegraph would be busy.
As he entered Paris Modes (Madame Blanc: Prop. – late of Paris and Rome) his heart sank. Madame Blanc was not far short of being a mirror image of the man he had just left. Only the clothes and the unhappy addition of some lipstick on her front teeth distinguished the one from the other. They had to be brother and sister. Monsieur Pamplemousse wondered if they shared the same stone at night. Between them they probably had the whole village tied up; a captive market forced to pay over the odds for anything that was needed.
Having exchanged minimal pleasantries he stifled his repugnance and grasped the nettle with both hands. ‘I am in need of some clothing … ladies clothing.’
Madame Blanc made a show of peering out of the window as though looking for someone.
‘Madame has had a puncture?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse shook his head. ‘I am on my own.’
‘Aah!’ Madame Blanc understood at once. She was used to dealing with gentlemen customers who wanted to surprise their wives.
‘It is for Madame’s anniversaire?’
‘Non,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘It is not.’ He almost added that he had no wish to fill in a questionnaire on the subject, but waited instead while the problem was considered and evaluated.
‘Then Monsieur is looking for something a little more general? A souvenir of the area, perhaps? A local costume?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse began to wish he had thought the conversation through beforehand instead of plunging straight in. He tried to remember what Abeille had been wearing. Apart from the négligée, not a lot. Common sense told him it would be as well to get something as near to the original as possible, but looking around the shop he could see nothing remotely resembling any of it.
‘Some nightwear,’ he said vaguely. ‘Of the sort which can also be used during the day.’
‘Quelle age is Monsieur’s wife?’
‘A little younger than myself, give or take.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse oscillated his free hand up and down in a non-committal fashion, leaving as much latitude as possible.
The proprietress waddled to the other side of the shop and removed a garment from a rail. Breathing heavily from the effort, she returned and spread what looked like the prototype for an early bell tent across the counter. All it needed were some guy ropes.
Monsieur Pamplemousse decided it was time he adopted a more positive approach. ‘I am sure it is très pratique,’ he said tactfully. ‘However, my wife is fortunate. She has the figure of a jeune fille. A jeune fille of, perhaps, twenty-one.’
‘Oooh, là là!’ Madame Blanc wagged a finger at him. ‘It sounds as though it is Monsieur who is the fortunate one.’
Eyeing Monsieur Pamplemousse with more than passing interest, she moistened her lips with a furry tongue, managing to transfer yet more lipstick to her front teeth in the process.
‘Monsieur has something “special” in mind?’
‘Comme ci, comme ça.’ Momentarily bereft of his powers of description, Monsieur Pamplemousse sought refuge in a series of whistles.
It had the desired effect. A gleam came into Madame Blanc’s eye as she disappeared into the back room. He caught a brief glimpse of some emergency facial repair work being carried out behind a cupboard door before she returned carrying a large cardboard box, her blood-red lips pursed in what was presumably intended to be an enticing bee-sting smile.
Rummaging inside the box, she discarded some soiled-looking tissue paper, then withdrew the item she had been looking for, holding it up against her ample bosom by way of demonstration.
‘This is the number one favourite in the village, Monsieur.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse stared at the garment for a moment or two, trying to decide what was meant to go where. The last time he had seen anything similar had been in a shop in the Place de Clichy shortly before the Vice Squad moved in. The makers had called it un gruyère after the cheese.
‘But it is full of holes!’
Madame Blanc gave a wink. ‘That is why it is so popular, Monsieur.’
Reaching into the box she withdrew another, smaller piece of frippery, the purpose of which was even harder to imagine, if indeed it had a purpose. ‘Should Madame suffer from the cold you can always buy her the optional extras.’
Cackling at her own joke, Madame Blanc handed him both garments and reached for the top button of her blouse. ‘If Monsieur is disposed I can arrange a demonstration.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse reeled slightly both from the thought and from the waft of stale garlic which enveloped him as she attempted to squeeze past. Lingering in the process, Madame Blanc made contact with the snail-filled plastic bag he was still clutching beneath the cape.
‘Mon Dieu!’ He could feel her hot breath on his face as she crossed herself.
A FERMÉ sign in place across the door, she locked it and pointedly dropped the key inside the dark recesses of her cleavage. It disappeared without trace. Beckoning him to follow her, she waddled towards the back room.
‘Tell Madame we do not do exchanges, but we do have a hire service.’
‘You mean …’ Monsieur Pamplemousse stared after her. ‘This has already been worn?’
His remark triggered off a further cackle. ‘Not for very long, Monsieur. Not for very long.’ A blouse landed on the floor at her feet.
Turning her back on him, Madame Blanc began making heavy weather of undoing the straps holding her brassiere in place. The invitation was clear.
Taking advantage of the moment, Monsieur Pamplemousse gazed round the shop. The choice, if it could be called a choice, lay between retrieving the key – and he doubted if even Madame Blanc herself knew where it had ended up – or making good his escape. Desperate situations demanded desperate measures.
He was in the process of trying to gauge the age and thickness of the door, recalling times past when one well-aimed kick with all his weight behind it had usually done the trick, wondering if old skills learnt in the Sûreté might come to his aid, when he heard the telephone ring.
It triggered off a muffled exclamation.
While Madame Blanc took the call, he crossed to the window and lifted the blind to make sure his bicyclette was still where he had left it. On the other side of the place he could see the owner of Videos Extraordinaires behind his counter. He was holding a receiver to his ear. Lip movements coincided with gaps in the conversation at his end.
Turning away from the window, Monsieur Pamplemousse was just in time to see Madame Blanc push the connecting door partly closed with the heel of her shoe. If he’d had any doubts about the reason for the call, he dismissed them. Her voice had taken on a different tone. A shadow fell across the opening as she retrieved her blouse.
It was now or never and the decision was no longer in doubt. Counting out what seemed to be a reasonable sum of money in view of the paucity of material, Monsieur Pamplemousse stuffed the garments into his trouser pocket.
He was in the act of bracing himself when he recalled the other Shakespearean quotation he had learnt as a boy. ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’.
Who knew what sort of story Madame Blanc might concoct to wreak her revenge? Too bad. Whatever she dreamt up it couldn’t make his current situation any worse.
Stay, and he might well risk being accused of attempted rape, or worse. Go, and for the time being at least he would remain master of his own destiny.
Monsieur Pamplemousse felt sure that had he found himself in a similar situation, Shakespeare would have reached very much the same conclusion. He might even have dreamt up a suitable quotation as he put his boot through the door.
The same might equally well have been said, albeit in a different context, about Pommes Frites. Had he been waylaid in the street by someone with a clipboard carrying out a nationwide survey on the likes and dislikes of the canine population of France he would unhesitatingly have placed his ‘likes’ tick in the section set aside for those chiens who were of an urban disposition. And had that happened he would undoubtedly have added a suitable crisp quotation on the shortcomings of the countryside in general for good measure.
If pushed to award marks, he would have given the countryside perhaps three out of ten, as against a maximum ten out of ten for somewhere like Paris, pointing to the fact that in the country it was sometimes possible to go for hours on end without anything happening at all, especially when it was raining. Then, as often as not, when something did occur you were so taken by surprise that the chances were you missed it altogether.
One quick blink in order to make sure you weren’t dreaming and by the time you opened your eyes again what you thought you had seen was no longer there.
Pommes Frites could have filled a multi-paged questionnaire on the subject in no time at all.
The present occasion was a good example, and it wasn’t helped by the restricted view through the porthole of his master’s cabin. By standing on the bed he could just about see one half of the bridge spanning the canal at Bussière-sur-Ouche, together with a short section of the road leading to it, but no more.
What he thought he saw – and it had been just a momentary glimpse, no more – was his master shooting across the canal on a bicyclette; head down, cape flying in the wind, as though his very life depended on it. Pommes Frites barely had time to take in the fact, when Monsieur Pamplemousse reappeared, this time heading in the opposite direction. He skidded to a stop, fell off his machine, then lifted it high above his head as though about to throw it in the canal.
It was then, when Pommes Frites’ powers of absorption felt as though they had reached saturation point, that he closed his eyes.
When he opened them again he found to his surprise that the scene had completely changed. Both master and bicyclette had vanished and their place had been taken by a police car and two gendarmes, both of whom were scanning the canal bank on either side of the bridge, obviously as mystified as he was.
Pommes Frites’ opinion of the countryside in general and portholes in particular reached a new low. One way and another he’d had his fill of both for one day. Had he been writing to a local journal he would have signed himself ‘Disgusted of Paris’. It would have boded ill for any researcher wanting to pursue the subject to the bitter end.
One thing was abundantly clear. His master was in trouble and it was time for action.
In a matter of seconds Pommes Frites was on the towpath and racing towards the bridge. With what to some might have seemed an uncanny show of cunning, but to one who had received his training in the chiens section of the Paris Sûreté was all in a day’s work, he timed to perfection the moment when both policemen had their backs to him. Racing across the road, he leapt over a ditch and into a field. Once there he gave voice to a blood-curdling mixture of baying and snarling, coupled with leaps and bounds, as though engaged in doing battle with an assailant of the very worst kind. Rin Tin Tin at the height of his powers could have done no better, and even then he would have needed a good many retakes to get his timing right.
Glancing briefly over his shoulder as he sped through the sodden grass, he saw to his satisfaction that his ruse had worked. The two gendarmes were engaged in hot pursuit. It was now only a matter of leading them as far away from the boat as possible before giving them the slip so that he could return to the bridge.
In the event the reunion of master and hound was necessarily brief. Marcel Carné would have milked the Simenon-like scenario to the full, making much of the canal, the remorseless rain, and of Monsieur Pamplemousse hiding under the bridge. Art cinemas the world over would have treasured for years to come the moment when Pommes Frites caught sight of his master and stopped dead in his tracks.
But there was no time to lose. Greetings exchanged, and having made certain the coast was clear, they set off as fast as they could go along the towpath towards Le Creuset, each basking in the sheer pleasure of the other’s company, both busy with their own thoughts.
In one sense it was communication at the highest level; speech was rendered totally redundant.
Not for Pommes Frites the human error of assuming that things said necessarily conveyed the meaning the speaker intended, and in Monsieur Pamplemousse’s case so much had happened in such a short space of time he would have been hard put to condense it into words anyway.
It would be impossible to explain to Pommes Frites, par exemple, that the reason why he was walking with a limp was because the door to Paris Modes (Madame Blanc: Prop.) had proved unexpectedly resistant to being kicked open. Nor, for the moment, could he have given a lucid blow by blow account of his nightmare ride down the steeply winding hill leading to the Vallée d’Ouche.
On his part, Pommes Frites wondered if his master really thought he had been stuck in the porthole a second time. Once had been quite enough. No self-respecting dog would let it happen twice.
Clearly his master hadn’t wanted his, Pommes Frites’, face to be seen, otherwise why would he have covered it with his trousers? Therefore it had been a case of doing the right thing and pretending to be stuck. But that, in turn, could mean only one thing; Monsieur Pamplemousse must know what Pommes Frites knew. But did he know that Pommes Frites knew that he knew what he knew? And if he did, then why hadn’t he done something about it? It was a puzzle and no mistake.
As they drew near to Le Creuset Pommes Frites wondered if he should give a demonstration of his command of portholes, but glancing up at his master, he felt less than reassured; he clearly had his mind on other things.
Unaware of the thought processes going on alongside him, Monsieur Pamplemousse took stock of the situation. Everything was quiet. The fact that the coach was nowhere to be seen suggested an outing was taking place, which meant the rest of the crew would be taking it easy. It would be sensible to make sure Pommes Frites wasn’t seen by the police. If he were and they connected him to Le Creuset the two gendarmes would be on to him like a shot.
He decided to take a chance. Explanations could come later if need be. Signalling Pommes Frites to follow on behind, Monsieur Pamplemousse made his way up the gangplank.
He braced himself as he reached his cabin. Expecting the home-made wedge to be still in place he knocked on the door and to his surprise it swung open, revealing an empty room.
Removing his cape, Monsieur Pamplemousse registered Abeille’s absence with a sense of shock. It was the last thing he had expected. He felt the bed. There was a hollow just below the porthole where she must have sat awaiting his return. It was still warm to the touch, so it couldn’t be that long since she had left. He wondered whether to go looking for her, but decided against it. Perhaps someone else had come to the rescue. Boniface? There would be hell to pay if that were the case.
Contemplating his next move, going back over things in his mind, Monsieur Pamplemousse suddenly remembered the escargots. There had been a moment during his flight down the hill when he had almost collided with a vanload of police going in the opposite direction and he’d literally had to throw himself off the bicyclette into the bushes. Fortunately the van had been going so fast the attention of those inside had been focused on the road ahead. Only two dogs gazing mournfully out of the back window had registered his presence. It was too bad the bag had burst when he landed. Never mind. He knew where they were. Perhaps he could return later.
The loss of the escargots reminded him of the envelope Fabrice Delamain had given him. He felt in his pocket. It was still there.
Ripping it open, he emptied the contents on to the dressing table.
Several bloodstained feathers fell out, along with a small air gun pellet. The pellet looked as though it had started off as a 0.22 hollow point. There was the familiar mushroom shape to the head where it had expanded on impact, producing added shock effect, but the hollow was still visible. In its original form it would have been large enough to have been laced with a few grains of cyanide, or some other poisonous substance like Ricin, sealed in place by a dab of paraffin wax.
If that were so, what might have been intended simply as a warning shot, became a serious attempt at murder.
Murder would be hard to prove had either been used. Ricin was a natural toxin – one of the most powerful in the world. Extracted from the castor bean plant, it had double the toxicity of cobra venom, as the defecting Bulgarian agent Georgi Markov had found to his cost via a jab from an umbrella tip on the London underground. In India it was known as ‘mother-in-law’s poison’ because of its ability to kill without producing any obvious symptoms.
With cyanide the victim became unconscious almost immediately. Death could take place within one to fifteen minutes; the fastest ever recorded was ten seconds.
The classic symptoms were for the victim to turn reddish blue in the face, but who would ever know with a parrot?
Monsieur Pamplemousse placed the pellet and the feather carefully inside his wallet.
One thing was certain: Pommes Frites had had a lucky escape. A less well-trained hound might well have treated Vert-Vert as manna from heaven and devoured it on the spot.
Signalling Pommes Frites to make room, he lay back on the bed in order to consider the matter. As he did so he felt a lump underneath the bedclothes.
It was the book Abeille had been reading. If the title For the Love of Lilies wasn’t exactly memorable, he recognised the dust jacket immediately and he was about to toss it to one side when something made him look inside.
To his surprise the contents bore little relation to the lurid cover, which showed the body of a scantily-clad girl floating face upwards in a pond. It was an English paperback edition of Every Secret Thing by Patty Hearst; the story of the Californian heiress’s kidnapping by an urban terrorist organisation who called themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army. According to the blurb there had been a film of the story with Natasha Richardson in the leading role, but he didn’t recall seeing it at the time.
It was a reversal of the normal turn of events; a relatively serious book being passed off as a pulp novel.
Monsieur Pamplemousse stared at it. Riffling through the five hundred or so pages, he came across several slips of paper inserted at intervals along with an occasional pencilled exclamation mark in the margin, but the print was small and the effort of translating the relevant passages was not something he felt in the mood to attempt until he’d had a chance to recover from his ordeal.
But why conceal the book with another dust jacket? It was hardly banned material. And who was she hiding it from? Only Abeille could answer that question, and for the moment at least, for all he knew she could be on the other side of the moon.