Chasing Cezanne by Peter Mayle Page B

striped shirts.”
    â€œAnd red suspenders?”
    Lucy nodded. “Red, striped, floral, monogrammed, bulls and bears, cocktail recipes. One guy even had the Dow-Jones index printed on his. They take off their jackets when they get drunk.” She shook her head again, and her shoulders twitched at the memory. “How did you know about the suspenders?”
    â€œThere’d be a slump on Wall Street without them. Most of the trousers would fall down. He was from Wall Street, wasn’t he?”
    â€œLet’s just say he wasn’t a smartass photographer.” She came across and picked up the folder lying on the table. “Are these the shots from France?”
    â€œI was going to ask if you could get them up to Camilla. I’ve got a plane to catch.”
    â€œThere’s a surprise.” As Lucy looked through the transparencies, Andre saw her face soften. “These are nice. What a lovely old lady. She looks like Grandma Walcott without the tan. Is this her house?”
    â€œIt’s an old mill. You’d like France, Lulu.”
    â€œIt’s beautiful.” Lucy put the transparencies back in the folder and resumed her office manner, brisk and businesslike. “Well, where are we off to today?”
    Andre started to describe his phone call to the Bahamas. As he spoke, he was aware that he might be reading a great deal into Denoyer’s replies, his pauses and hesitations, his tone of voice. On the face of it, the man had said nothing suspicious; hadn’t seemed astonished or even surprised by what Andre had told him; hadn’t, in fact, seemed to show any more than polite interest until the photographs were mentioned. And yet, despite these reservations, Andre was positive that something was not quite right. Almost positive. Perhaps trying to convince himself as much as Lucy, he slipped unconsciously into a conspiratorial crouch, his head thrust forward, his expression grave.
    Lucy was leaning back against the arm of the couch, her chin on one hand, smiling occasionally at his more animated gestures. As he became more intense, so he became more French, using his hands as visual punctuation marks, stabbing the air or kneading it with his fingers to underscore each phrase, each significant nuance. When he finished, it was with the full Gallic display—shoulders and eyebrows rising in unison, elbows tucked in to his sides, palms spread out, lower lip jutting—everythingbut the feet used to emphasize the undeniable logic of his conclusions. His old professor at the Sorbonne would have been proud of him.
    â€œI only asked where you were going,” Lucy said.

    Those who travel to the Bahamas in winter tend to anticipate the weather, and many of the passengers at the gate were already in their tropical plumage—straw hats and sunglasses, beach-bright clothes, even one or two pairs of bold and premature shorts—and tropical mood too, with comments flying back and forth about skin diving, hot nightclubs in Nassau, and the delights of beach-bar cocktails with suggestive names. It was a festive crowd, ripe for self-indulgence and excess. Within twenty-four hours, Andre thought, most of them would be suffering from the island malady of Bacardi and sunburn.
    His own relationship with the Caribbean was not a happy one. Some years earlier, during his first winter in New York, the idea of being only a short flight away from a white sand beach had been a constant temptation. Giving in, he had borrowed the money for what was touted as a bargain week on one of the lesser Virgins and was ready to come back after four days. He found the prices exorbitant, the food overfried, heavy, and dull, and the few local residents he met addicted to gin and gossip. Subsequent working visits to other jewels of the Caribbean hadn’t changed his opinion: He and small islands were notsuited to each other. They gave him claustrophobia and indigestion.
    And so it was with a sense