Cognac Conspiracies Read online

  Marie-France waited for an explanation of this turn of events but received none. She showed no reaction. Against all odds, the Lavoisier company, which had been up for grabs just a few days earlier, was finally safe.

  “Good, good,” she said simply, as though this wise decision was part of the natural order of things.

  Who had convinced Claude-Henri that he shouldn’t allow himself to be bought? It had to be the prime minister’s envoy. Marie-France felt like a pawn in the chess game of her life.

  Standing before the decrepit lawyer, she pretended that she had arranged the whole thing. With a shaky hand, she signed the documents.

  12

  “Will you stop by the mill for a cup of tea?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have time,” Benjamin Cooker said firmly. “I’d rather meet in Jarnac, if that’s okay. On the island in the public gardens.”

  “That sounds a little like a romantic rendezvous,” Sheila said. “Have you been in the gazebo?”

  “The gazebo will do just fine,” the winemaker said a little conspiratorially.

  The Englishwoman giggled and promised to be there at five o’clock, no earlier.

  The gazebo wasn’t the ornate, nostalgic type seen on many town squares, but rather a modern little building with benches where people could sit and watch the impetuous or languid waters of the Charente, depending on the season.

  Carved on the benches were obscenities, along with hearts with initials. At night, the gazebo was the scene of surreptitious meetings, furtive embraces, forbidden affairs, and sighs and groans barely masked by the splash of fish and the rustling of bats. With the river as the only witness and a forest of shrubs as a screen, it was a perfect setting for illicit lovemaking.

  During the day, however, there were only runners in jogging outfits, occasional fishermen, and lonely souls who came to dream in a corner of nature protected from the tribulations of the rest of the world.

  Sheila Scott was late. Benjamin used the time to jot down some notes about the vintages he had tasted the night before. His old friend was in a sweat when she finally arrived. She was wearing a white linen sundress that hardly flattered her milky skin.

  “Why the devil did you make me come here? It’s charming and all, but not very reassuring for a woman who’s alone.”

  “What are you afraid of? A werewolf, a wild animal, or a handsome boy ready to woo you?”

  Sheila stiffened and stared at the riverbank.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that you have a son?”

  “A certain taste for privacy, perhaps.”

  “When you have a handsome kid, you don’t deny yourself the pleasure of showing him off,” Benjamin said, stretching his legs out to savor the sun’s soft rays.

  “How do you know about him?” Sheila asked. Benjamin could tell she was taking umbrage.

  “I think he sells his image.”

  “He makes a living at it. He gets by.”

  “Yes, I’m sure his looks help him get by. But something tells me that he needs more than those modeling jobs. He has an income stream or two on the side.”

  “What are you insinuating?”

  “I saw the kind of car he drives.”

  “Benjamin, what are getting at? What exactly do you want to know?”

  “For the sake of the old and intimate times we shared, I’d like to hear from your lips what I already know.”

  “But I don’t owe you anything, especially not any explanations! Our paths wouldn’t have crossed again if we hadn’t had that chance meeting on the terrace of the Coq d’Or.”

  “You are absolutely right. Providence, however, put us together on that terrace. Unless, of course, you arranged it all. I understand that you want to protect your son, but in a few hours, he will be taken in for questioning and possibly charged with murder.”

  “Murder?”

  Sheila tried to meet Benjamin’s eyes. Confronted with his hard stare, she looked away and walked over to the railing of the gazebo. Benjamin followed.

  “Why did you pretend that you didn’t know the Lavoisiers?”

  “You call that knowing? Everyone here knows everyone else. Marie-France is just an arrogant and conniving woman who cries crocodile tears about being eaten alive by the big-money Chinese. We know how that worked out. Well done! Claude-Henri is no better, but at least he’s never been one to go around complaining. As for the brother they buried, he was just a manic-depressive who never felt good about himself.”

  “And your son consoled him as best he could.”

  “Yes, I think they knew each other.”

  “You might even say they were intimate.”

  “What are you trying to get me to say?”

  “Nothing that isn’t true,” Benjamin said, skipping a stone over the water like a bored child killing time.

  “Yes, they got on well with each other. Pierre Lavoisier was a bit of an artist, a sensitive type, and Nathan liked him a lot. They enjoyed spending time together.”

  “Indeed, they were very close,” Benjamin said.

  “You want me to say that my son is gay? Well, you’re wrong!”

  “I don’t care whether he’s gay or not. That’s his business. But he has the profile of a rather brilliant and unscrupulous young man who demanded money from his friend, lover—whatever—and damned big amounts at that, so that he could live the life his mother couldn’t provide for him. He most likely told Pierre, who was already depressed, that he would leave if he didn’t come up with the cash. Maybe the threat was always hanging over Pierre’s head.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “He’ll have to prove it. Not to me, but to the cops.”

  “Nathan isn’t that underhanded, and he’s certainly no murderer.”

  “The evidence has accumulated over the last few weeks, and the guy who started the investigation is a young man who is very charming himself. Beauty is not always the promise of happiness, contrary to what Stendhal said.”

  “Spare me your stupid quotations, please!”

  “If you weren’t the woman I held in my arms so long ago, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Well, go ahead. Run to the police, and tell your lies. Drag my son through the mud.”

  Benjamin went back to the graffiti-covered bench and sat down. A robin landed nearby and pecked at a bread crumb left by a passerby. On the opposite bank, the towers of Château Floyras rose above the trees.

  “Come and sit down.”

  “Why?” Sheila asked. She pulled a tissue out of her handbag.

  “Come here, I said.”

  Sheila went over and sat down. She put her head on Benjamin’s shoulder, just as she had on that spring day when the hailstorm tore through the garden.

  They almost looked liked lovers.

  § § §

  Benjamin Cooker had arranged to meet his assistant at the train station café that night. “Take the first train. I’ll pick you up in Angoulême, because the connection for Cognac is too late.” After all the bad luck, the worst predictions regarding the future of the Lavoisier business, and the wild gossip, Benjamin planned to get to the bottom of Pierre Lavoisier’s death. Was it accidental or intentional? A bad fall, a fit of dizziness on the bank of the Charente could happen so easily. But then again, it wasn’t hard to imagine an angry or even deliberate push.

  “I didn’t expect to be making another trip to Jarnac this soon,” Virgile declared as he jumped off the train.

  “I do hope it will be the last,” Benjamin grumbled.

  The winemaker spared his assistant no details of his argument in the gazebo with the woman who even now hoped to be his mistress. Sheila had denied that Nathan would ever lean on Pierre for extravagant sums of money, but she had confirmed their friendship. And as far as she was concerned, that was all that it was: a friendship.

  “The woman knows nothing about her son. She still considers him as innocent as a choirboy,” Benjamin said.

  “But maybe he’s just an unscrupulous gig
olo and not a murderer. I can’t figure out his motive. Why would he eliminate the very person who was signing over one check after another?”

  “You’re right, Virgile. This Nathan is the lynchpin of our mystery, but even though I’ve never met him, I don’t see how he could be completely unlikable. Knowing his mother and having read his father’s books, I have to believe that Nathan has some redeeming qualities.”

  “Listen, Sheila’s son may have one or two redeeming qualities, but one thing is sure: he’s shady. He’s never around but seems to take up a lot of space.”

  “You can say that again,” Benjamin mumbled.

  “Are we staying at Château Yeuse?’

  “Yes, why?” Benjamin asked.

  “Because with your permission, I’d like to go to Samson’s Mill to have a little talk with our top model. I’d like to see what this guy who’s been lining his pockets for so long is hiding in his shorts, if you get my meaning.”

  “I know you, Virgile. You’ll come to blows.”

  “All brawn and no brains, my grandmother used to say.”

  “I don’t think it’s very wise, Virgile.”

  “In this matter, nothing is really wise. Who would think that the son of your first love…I assume you couldn’t be his father, right?”

  Benjamin couldn’t help smiling. His assistant continued. “Really, this is all very complicated. Who would believe it if we told them the story? Here we are, stuck in a corner of fucking Charente, investigating a drowning that could be a murder, involved with an elite but peculiar family, and trying to extricate ourselves from a sticky situation with a woman with a passion for roses, among other things—after taking on and dropping a job commissioned by a client halfway around the world.”

  Benjamin Cooker smoothed his hair and offered to buy his assistant a beer. He wanted to rein in the thoughts racing through his head.

  But sitting across from each other at the laminate table, they hardly spoke. Benjamin was thinking of Sheila. He wanted to pull the thorn from her side. The rose grower’s son would surely be investigated. It was only a matter of hours. Benjamin spent several minutes advising Virgile before giving him the keys to the convertible. His main concern was not so much his treasured Mercedes, but rather the confrontation with Sheila’s son.

  “Leave your cell phone on. I want to be able to reach you the whole time. Understand?”

  “Okay, boss! Worst-case scenario, Nathan isn’t there, and I spend the night at the mill with our lady love,” Virgile said with a wink.

  Benjamin did not appreciate his stab at humor. “No nonsense, son!” he said in parting.

  § § §

  Like an elegant Venetian mirror, the water reflected the radiance of Samson’s Mill in the violet-colored night. A chorus of crickets was rising from the garden, which emanated the intoxicating fragrances of Sheila’s roses. In the distance, the church of Villars-les-Bois was like a lighthouse in a swell of grapevines.

  Virgile had parked the convertible on the road from Migron to avoid arousing Sheila and Nathan’s curiosity. Through one of the windows, he could see them sitting at the table. He rang the bell, turned up the collar of his jacket, and slipped his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. He recognized Sheila’s steps and voice. “At this time of night?”

  “Oh, hey, it’s you. I mean, good evening.” Nathan’s mother feigned surprise as she let Virgile in. She stumbled through an inarticulate introduction, her lips trembling.

  “Nathan, this…This…is Virgile, the son of your father’s friend. You remember. I told you about him.”

  With a sullen look, Nathan studied the visitor who had emerged from the darkness. Still sitting in his chair, he struck a pose. Virgile assumed he intended to look provocative, but that didn’t quite come across. A poor actor, Virgile thought. His tone was just as false.

  “Styron never mentioned you or your dad,” he said.

  “And for good reason,” Virgile replied. He was watching Sheila’s drawn face and tired eyes. “I am nobody’s son here. And I’m certainly not the son of some distant friend. My so-called dad is a much more intimate acquaintance of your mother’s.”

  “Get out of here!”

  “So Sheila didn’t tell you anything.”

  “Go to hell!”

  Nathan stood up. His build was more impressive than the catalog photos suggested. He easily could have been on a rugby team in Bergerac. Not as a forward, of course, but as a wing, for sure.

  Sheila’s son looked threatening, but his quavering voice betrayed his anxiety.

  “I think we need to talk, the two of us,” Virgile said.

  “I have nothing to say to you. Get lost!”

  “Stop the bullshit. I don’t know you, but I won’t beat around the bush. You’re used to that, I’m sure. You get on familiar terms real quick, don’t you?”

  Nathan’s expression changed. Virgile could tell he was no longer playing the role of the belligerent child but was looking to his mother for an explanation.

  “You’re going to listen to me,” Virgile insisted, “and play fair, or else you’re screwed.”

  “Mom, who is this cretin? Who does he think he is?”

  “Listen to him, for God’s sake,” she responded. Sheila was already crying.

  “Sheila, Nathan and I need to sit down and have a talk. Can you make us some coffee? Nathan, I know you’re looking for celebrity, and in forty-eight hours, in my opinion, you’re going to be on the front page of the newspapers. At least the Sud-Ouest and La Charente Libre. But it won’t be the kind of notoriety you’re looking for.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Either you take me for a fool, or you don’t understand that you’ve been living on borrowed time. Let’s start at the beginning. I believe you were a friend, a great friend or, more likely, a boyfriend of Pierre Lavoisier.”

  “That’s none of your business! My private life is—”

  “Yes, I know. Your private life is your own business. But if you had feelings for Pierre, why weren’t you at his funeral?”

  “I had an audition for a television commercial.”

  “And your friendship wasn’t more important than a stupid commercial?”

  “My work isn’t stupid.”

  “To the contrary, I have high regard for what you do. I know how important it is and how busy you are. As a matter of fact, I was hoping you would tell me you were shooting a commercial in some distant country on the night that Pierre jumped—or fell—into the water, because that would remove the suspicion hanging over you.”

  “What suspicion? What are you implying? Sure, Pierre was a friend. More than that. He was the person I could always talk to about anything. And I could count on him.”

  “He was something of a big brother, wasn’t he? A father, too.”

  “Maybe, even though I didn’t really think of him that way.”

  Nathan was now himself, Virgile thought: fragile, vulnerable, obviously sensitive. He refused the cup of coffee his mother handed him and fumbled as he tried to light a cigarette.

  “Could I have a cognac, please, Mom? But first, tell him. Go ahead, tell him that Pierre was my friend. Shit, tell him!” He looked at Virgile. “You’re accusing me of what—killing him?”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything, but in Pierre Lavoisier’s desk they found tangible proof that you regularly fleeced him.”

  “Me? I fleeced him?”

  “Don’t tell us any of your lies, Nathan. We have to know, your mother and I.”

  His eyes fixed on the amber-colored cognac, Sheila’s son rationalized his friend’s generosity, saying that it seemed perfectly acceptable, not at all excessive, just something a close friend was doing from the goodness of his heart.

  “Sometimes Pierre would give me presents, mostly clothes. One of his nicest presents was this watch. It’s an old Lip, and I love it. I wear it all the time. But I never needed any of his dough. I do okay on my own. What do you take me for? A gigolo, a
prostitute?”

  Nathan had not even put the cognac Sheila had poured to his lips. The flask had no label. Just a piece of tape that read: “Sample for Nathan, 1979.” Virgile recognized Pierre Lavoisier’s handwriting. Hadn’t he himself received, in a gesture of friendship not devoid of ambiguity, a flask blended in his year of birth?

  Virgile watched as tears trickled down Nathan’s cheeks. Styron’s son couldn’t forgive himself for missing Pierre’s funeral. Yes, he was a bastard, an ingrate, the lowest of the low…Then taking his accuser aside, he murmured in a sweet and clear voice, “But why would I have done anything to harm him?”

  Virgile glanced at Sheila. The answer to that question had the power to absolve him or condemn him.

  “Pierre loved me more than I could love him. But he never held that against me.”

  “You know, that’s the way it often is with love,” Virgile said. “There’s one person who loves more than the other.”

  Virgile looked at Sheila again and saw that she had emptied Nathan’s glass of cognac. Had she downed it in a single gulp? Virgile saw her try to put the glass on the table. She missed. The glass shattered on the floor the very second she collapsed on the faded yellow couch.

  § § §

  When Benjamin’s assistant left them, the moon was casting a dull light on the motionless paddles of the water mill. Virgile did not put the convertible top up. The air was warm and smelled of heather.

  At Château Yeuse, Benjamin was sitting in the library. Enveloped in plumes of gray smoke, he was taking great delight in a Montecristo A with an oily cap. As soon as he spotted Virgile, he rewarded him with a cheerful grin that clearly said, “I was expecting you.”

  “Would you like to have a Lavoisier? Taste this 1982, my dear Virgile.”

  13

  Salt-and-pepper hair, impeccably cut, deep tan, blue shirt and caramel-colored cashmere sweater, the proud bearing and elegant movements: Claude-Henri Lavoisier belonged to a certain breed of flamboyant men. He wore his years gracefully and did not seem the least bit tired from his eight-hour transatlantic flight. He arrived at night with no warning, almost like a thief.