Cognac Conspiracies Read online

  And then Pierre would bend over another dried flower and compare the preserved scent with the aroma in one of the vials. “It’s a rare smell that you find in certain wines from the Rhône Valley, near Condrieu.”

  Pierre’s gestures were fresh in Virgile’s mind, and he remembered how his voice took on a more serious tone whenever he was perplexed by an indefinable bouquet. He seemed to be still there, in his greenhouse, about to emerge from behind the antique Japanese screen or the purple drape surrounding his four-poster bed.

  Why had Marie-France brought him to the greenhouse? “Come,” she had said simply, as if she didn’t have the courage to face her brother’s fanciful world alone. “Pierre was different—”

  Virgile felt awkward, at a loss for words, but he tried hard not to lose his composure in Pierre’s sumptuous mess. His ran his finger over a geode, and then he weighed it in his hand.

  “You know, Pierre never allowed me to come here,” Marie-France said. “He cultivated the art of secrecy.”

  “Yet you assured Mr. Cooker that you had searched his desk to make sure he hadn’t changed his will or written a letter before—”

  “I lied.”

  “Why?”

  “Probably because I didn’t want to face reality.”

  “What reality?”

  “We were so close, my brother and I, but at odds in our ambitions and passions. We only talked about things we had in common. Apart from that—”

  Marie-France picked up a brass candlesnuffer and started digging out the blackened wax.

  “Apart from that, silence was the best course,” she said.

  Flanked by a Moroccan brass lamp and a huge philodendron, Pierre’s mahogany roll-top desk sat in a corner of the greenhouse. Above the desk was an enamel sign. “Cognac Lavoisier: Of course you deserve it!” The desk was embellished with a marble slab on which Pierre had arranged various navigational instruments, all shiny and certainly in perfect working condition. There was a large sextant, a small boat compass with an alidade, a telescope, a bronze ship’s bell, and miniature Levasseur and Delagrave maps. The mail slots held old letters and postcards. A green leather blotter gave a final touch of elegance to this desk, swept clear of all paperwork. Virgile presumed that Pierre kept his papers in the desk drawers, all three of which were locked. Life in this little corner of his greenhouse world was in perfect order: tidy, arranged, shiny.

  “If your brother wanted to take his life, he would have explained why in a letter, and he would have left it in clear view on his desk—under this geode, for example. You can be sure of that.”

  “You’re right.” Marie-France sighed as she dropped into a club chair. She poked her fingernail in the cigarette burns on the armrests. Her agitation seemed somewhat pathetic to Virgile.

  “So you haven’t tried to find out anything by going through his personal things?”

  “No, all I did was open his last bank statement.”

  “And?”

  “It’s strange. Pierre was overdrawn. That wasn’t like him. He was writing a lot of checks.”

  “His passion for antiques, maybe?” Virgile asked.

  “Maybe.” She gazed at all the furniture, the paintings, and the knickknacks patiently accumulated since childhood. Virgile wondered if she knew the significance of the objects that filled this greenhouse, or were they just things to her?

  “Who might have been angry with your brother?”

  “I don’t know, unless it was—”

  “Yes, I know, the Chinese investors. But it’s too easy to make them the villains in this.”

  The Lavoisier Cognacs heiress had succeeded in working her fingernail through one of the burn marks. Now she was ripping the leather and digging into the cotton and horsehair padding beneath it.

  “You say your brother had drained his bank account. Do you know where his money was going?”

  Marie-France was quiet. She seemed to be staring at the Charente River shimmering in the distance. A shaft of light from the door, which had been left ajar, was making its way into the greenhouse.

  Virgile started to inspect the desk more closely, and he motioned to Marie-France to join him.

  “No, please, search it yourself, Mr. Lanssien. I can’t bring myself to do it.”

  She extracted her fingers from the interior of the armrests, and the smell of old cigarettes wafted through the room. She got up and found the key to the drawers.

  Meticulously and almost deferentially, Benjamin Cooker’s assistant opened each of the three drawers. The first contained an album of black-and-white photos, some negatives in an envelope labeled “Martin Lamour,” and art photos and portraits taken in Saintes, along with a few sketches of a rather handsome man. The second drawer held an old address book and an insurance policy listing all the furnishings and valuable objects in the greenhouse. The third drawer contained bank statements from Crédit Agricole Charente Périgord in carefully annotated folders. A dozen checkbook registers accounted for all of Pierre Lavoisier’s expenses. For the most part, and especially for the oldest ones, nothing was missing: dates, names of recipients, purpose of the expenditures, or exact amounts. The registers went back more than five years.

  Finances really weren’t Virgile’s strong suit. He treated his own checking account with a certain casual attitude, and this cost him substantial overdraft fees every month. But now he was methodically going over Pierre’s figures and annotations. And at the end of his examination, he had found that the recipient and the purpose of some of the transactions were missing. In each case the amount was considerable, and the handwriting looked shaky. Virgile gave his findings to Marie-France, who had sat down again in the leather chair.

  “You can see why he was overdrawn,” Virgile said.

  “Maybe he was buying antiques at auction and was just too preoccupied to pay attention to his bookkeeping,” Marie-France suggested.

  “I don’t think so. Each time your brother bought a piece of furniture or a painting, he recorded the amount and the name of the auctioneer, as well as what it was that he bought. You can see that on every check stub. No, I think that—”

  “You think what?” Marie-France asked. She was avoiding eye contact.

  “That these expenses weren’t very—let’s say—orthodox.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Perhaps there was someone in your brother’s life, and he was keeping it a secret from you.”

  “A love life I knew nothing about?”

  “Yes, it’s not all that unusual for a man to hide an affair. Your brother may have had his reasons, and you said yourself that you never came to his greenhouse. How would you know if he didn’t tell you?”

  Marie-France had lit a cigarette and was making fresh burns in the leather upholstery. She seemed to be taking pleasure in this, and the greenhouse was beginning to smell like singed fabric.

  “Pierre was a very discreet man.”

  “Okay, but was he the type to pay a call girl when he went to Paris or traveled to some other city?”

  “Pierre hardly ever left Jarnac.”

  “So you don’t know of any guilty pleasures he might have had?”

  “I don’t know what you are referring to.”

  “You couldn’t have lived next door to your brother and not have known anything about his weaknesses or his social life, Ms. Lavoisier. Either you know things you don’t want to reveal for reasons you haven’t shared with me, which makes your brother’s death even more suspicious and you a potential suspect, or else Pierre was a mystery to you, in which case his death is all the more puzzling. In either case, allow me to quote my boss. ‘When suspicion sets in, let’s not run away!’”

  Marie-France Lavoisier crushed out the cigarette and smoothed her blouse. She walked over to the desk where Virgile was going through the payouts that had no designated recipients. Virgile felt a little like a schoolboy toiling over his homework. He had never been good at math, and all the figures were making him dizzy.

  “I
wish I could help you, Mr. Lanssien.”

  He felt two hands on his shoulders. Long fingers were exploring his deltoids and rising with exquisite slowness to his neck. The odor of patchouli accompanied this sensual assault, and heavy breathing caressed him behind his ear. Virgile did not turn around. Now an expert hand was stroking his chest, brushing his nipples, and sliding toward his belly.

  Virgile leaned back and closed his eyes. The words on the sign ran through his head. “Cognac Lavoisier: Of course you deserve it!”

  8

  Benjamin Cooker was late for his noon meeting on the patio of the Ritz at the Place Vendôme. He had driven all the way to Paris for the appointment, but he knew his punctual client, Shiyi Cheng, would be offended if he was even ten minutes late. Benjamin could see the businessman, alone, eyeing the nearby tables as he impatiently fiddled with his glass of Moët et Chandon. No doubt, he was envious of the lucrative deals being brokered all around him.

  The winemaker didn’t trust his client’s unctuous smile. He knew this kind of man’s manners all too well and detected anger in Cheng’s pinched lips. Benjamin feigned the attitude of a busy man dispensing with formalities. He was tempted to refuse the glass of Champagne, but his good manners prevailed. In a tone both courteous and artful, he informed Cheng of his intention to cut his assignment short. He would not be completing the Lavoisier audit.

  “At any rate, the French finance minister will use every means at his disposal to prevent a change of hands. I was approached by one of the prime minister’s advisors to inform you of the government’s position on this matter, which is considered sensitive for reasons I am not at liberty to explain.”

  “This is not exactly what we were expecting from you, Mr. Cooker. We were hoping to have an expert’s opinion. You accepted the assignment, and we agreed on your fee. You will need to complete the task.”

  Benjamin slid his right hand inside his jacket and pulled out his checkbook. He opened it.

  “What are you doing, Mr. Cooker?”

  “As you can see, I am reimbursing you for the entire amount I received. I believe we are even now. I thank you for your confidence, and I am truly sorry that I am unable to honor my commitment.”

  The man put down his glass and angrily tore up the check.

  “You are on Ms. Lavoisier’s payroll. You disappoint me, Mr. Cooker!”

  “I am beholden to no one. I am simply disengaging myself.”

  “That’s not the way it works,” Cheng said, pinching his thin lips even tighter. “You misunderstand our intentions. We are not attempting to impose our influence over anyone. Do, however, tell Ms. Lavoisier that the unfortunate death of her younger brother may just change the balance of power.”

  “I certainly will,” Benjamin answered curtly. “And while we’re at it, here’s my own piece of information: the public prosecutor of Angoulême is ready to open an investigation of Pierre Lavoisier’s death. Indeed, there are many questions. I think you could be in the prosecutor’s crosshairs.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “I’ve simply passed along what I’ve learned,” Benjamin replied.

  “My dear friend, you should put your mind to better use. For example, has your close associate, young Lanssien, told you anything about the true nature of the man who was fished out of the Charente River? They even say that…”

  Cheng’s cell phone rang. “I beg you to excuse me. I am expecting an important call.”

  The man stood up to take the call, walked into the lobby of the luxury hotel, and disappeared behind a pink marble column. When he returned, the minority shareholder of Lavoisier Cognacs didn’t seem to be at all concerned about Benjamin’s resignation. In fact, he looked jubilant. He asked Benjamin to have another glass of Champagne. The winemaker refused and quickly said good-bye, but not before Cheng could get in a parting shot.

  “Mr. Cooker, choose your sides carefully,” he said. “Think about it another day or two. In Jarnac, the waters of the Charente are murky and deep. You can’t see what’s lurking beneath the surface.”

  “Good day, Mr. Cheng, and now I have a metaphor for you. As Jean de la Fontaine put it: never sell the skin of a bear that you haven’t caught.”

  The Place Vendôme was radiant under the Parisian sky when Benjamin left the hotel. A shower had washed the pavement clean and chased the tourists away from the jewelry store windows. Benjamin felt surprisingly carefree. Tomorrow he would be back at Grangebelle, at Elisabeth’s side. In the Médoc, the grapevines would be flowering, and soon there would be the first growth. No, before that, he would drive back to Jarnac, pick up the incorrigible Virgile, and have a frank discussion with the Lavoisier woman. Maybe he would even make a detour to Samson’s Mill to see Sheila Scott and her roses. For one last good-bye.

  § § §

  The dusty dining room at Château Floyras didn’t appear to be used very often, if at all. The light from the lone crystal chandelier barely illuminated the embroidered tablecloth. Portraits on the toile-papered walls displayed the Lavoisier line like an ancient family album. All had hooked noses and thick eyebrows and wore solemn expressions. A French-Egyptian Revival-style sideboard and a Dutch wood-burning stove were the only furnishings, other than the table and chairs.

  Benjamin had been unable to refuse the invitation. The mistress of the house had insisted that he attend dinner. Naturally, Virgile was among the guests, as was a certain Maurice Fauret de Solmilhac, a braggart who, with ancestors from Périgord, had a touch of Gascony in his accent. He had a mischievous look and an obvious propensity for womanizing. Mr. Gaulejat, the special envoy, and he could have been twins, Benjamin thought. Solmilhac was a dapper man in his sixties with thick silver hair combed back and light blue eyes. He was wearing a signet ring that displayed a coat of arms and a Prince of Wales jacket with a blue silk handkerchief that matched his eyes. He was a confirmed bachelor and a longtime friend of the Lavoisier family, there for them in hard times and ready to put himself on the line to win the favors of the beautiful Marie-France. There was no doubt that he would boot the Chinese out of Jarnac for her. Moreover, his intentions were clear, as were the scowls he aimed at Virgile.

  “You are lucky, young man, to be rubbing elbows at your age with an authority on wine, the most famous one in France, no less—Europe for that matter and even the world,” he told Virgile.

  “Very lucky, indeed, sir, which, believe me, I am more aware of every day,” Virgile replied.

  Benjamin was not talkative. The duck was too dry. The potatoes were a bit too brown, and the Burgundy aligote was so-so. There was nothing at all appealing about this dinner. The conversation, meanwhile, was spiritless, despite Marie-France’s attempts to orchestrate a convivial atmosphere. Benjamin refused to do his bit, and Virgile’s pitiful attempts at conversation weren’t enough to compensate. Finally, Benjamin decided to glean something worthwhile from the forced gathering. He turned to Fauret de Solmilhac.

  “You seem to know everything about me. You’ve read my guides and drunk many of my wines. I, on the other hand, know nothing about you, Mr. Fauret de Solmilhac, other than the fact that you are a tireless friend of our hostess.”

  “Would you like to know my background? Actually, it’s not very interesting. Let’s say I do some brokering, which, thank heavens, has been rather profitable. I was a lawyer in Paris before that. The cases I witnessed in the courtrooms back then had the makings of great theater.”

  The man had raised his voice as if to demonstrate that he was a talented speaker, even something of an orator.

  “You might say my real profession today is lobbying. I have certain interpersonal skills, if you know what I mean.”

  “I can see that very well,” the winemaker said, dabbing his napkin on his lips.

  “I might add that you know the whole planet!” Marie-France said with affected enthusiasm.

  “The entire world? That’s going a bit too far, my dear Marie. Just a few influential people, which is enough to make m
e happy.”

  “You are a happy man, then,” Virgile said. Benjamin picked up the derisive tone in his assistant’s voice. But he didn’t think their dinner companions knew Virgile well enough to discern it.

  “In business, I believe I can reply in the affirmative, young man.”

  “And in love?” Virgile asked. Benjamin noted the presumptuous smile.

  “In that area, you have to be young, my boy, to believe in happiness.”

  Sensing the coming storm, Benjamin switched to a 1994 Beau-Séjour-Bécot much more to his liking and said, “Happiness engulfs our strength, just as misfortune extinguishes our virtues.”

  “François-René de Chateaubriand suits you well, Mr. Cooker,” the businessman said.

  “May I suggest that you give credit—without interest, mind you—to Balzac, rather than Chateaubriand? Words and keen insight into the human heart were these writers’ real treasures. Both were penniless when the trumpets of fame began to sound.”

  “I know, I know,” the man replied. Benjamin could see that he was not someone who allowed himself to be shown up. “So, Mr. Cooker, what do you think of this Saint-Émilion?”

  “Quite good, perhaps even better than good,” the winemaker responded laconically.

  “Say there, Marie-France, why are you being so quiet?” Solmilhac said, turning to their hostess. “And just when I have some news to share. You don’t need to add the fear of losing your cognacs to your troubles. I have found Claude-Henri. He’s in Canada. I think I can convince him to sell me his shares at a higher price than that scoundrel Cheng. Let me handle it. You know how important your company’s independence is to me.”

  The man wrapped his hand around Marie-France’s wrist and gave it a squeeze. Marie-France was playing along. Benjamin had already surmised that there was something between Marie-France and his assistant, and even though he made it a point to avoid prying into Virgile’s private affairs, he guessed that the young man had experience with mature women. He watched as Virgile smiled and checked his watch. Benjamin suppressed a yawn. The dinner had been frightfully dull, and this Fauret de Solmilhac was insufferably smug. It was time to end the ordeal. He had no intention of lighting his Havana and lingering even a few minutes more.