The Grave Gourmet by Alexander Campion Page B

better of it and glancing at her left hand he corrected himself. “Oh, do forgive me, madame,” he said ironically. “This is not a police matter. The police have no rights here. I’ve answered your questions. I’m certainly not going to give you privileged information. If you want anything more, you can always try your luck with a juge d’instruction and see how far you get. As far as I’m concerned this interview is over.” He swiveled slightly in his chair puffing out his chest, making the thin blue ribbon of the Chevalier of the Order of Merit—his establishment badge—all the more conspicuous.
    Capucine smiled thinly and got up. “Thank you for your consideration, monsieur. I’m sure we’ll meet again in the very near future.” She felt betrayed. Why had Jacques not told her about a DGSE investigation?

Chapter 10
    T hat evening Capucine dragged herself through the apartment doorway at ten o’clock, utterly exhausted and in a perfectly foul mood. Hearing Alexandre in the kitchen she went straight to him. They lived in what had been Alexandre’s bachelor flat, a rambling, disjointed series of rooms deep in the Marais, in an area that was only just showing the first tentative signs of becoming fashionable.
    Capucine’s redecoration had been far-reaching, but it had been made perfectly clear that the kitchen was Alexandre’s sanctum and not to be meddled with. The largest room in the apartment, it was filled with deeply scarred, oversized antiques purloined from the attic of Alexandre’s parents’ country house decades before. Two large oak armoires housed a vast hodgepodge of pots, pans, small appliances, and kitchen impedimenta. A once elegant mahogany glass-fronted display cabinet contained a haphazard collection of bottles and jars: herbs, spices, vinegars, oils, mysterious liquids and powders. The walls were festooned with hanging garlands of garlic and peppers, magnetic racks of knives, cleavers, and unidentifiable metallic instruments. A collection of herbs grew in Italian clay pots—most cracked or chipped—in the south-facing window. High up on the top of an armoire, a collection of Alexandre’s empty bottles of memorable wines collected dust. Capucine itched to throw them out.
    The epicenter of the room was Alexandre’s pride and joy, a brand-new La Cornue range, imposing in its black enamel and polished brass trim, built around a central cooking plaque just like a professional kitchen’s piano . The plaque was about two-and-a-half feet in diameter, ferociously hot in the middle, the heat diminishing gradually toward the edge; rather than fiddle with minute adjustments to a flame, the cook simply moved his pot closer or farther away from the middle of the plaque.
    As Capucine clumped in, Alexandre was in a rapture, correcting the seasoning of an apparently finished stock while preparing to start another. Two chairs had been pulled from the table and their backs were draped with hanging ribbons of pasta hung out to dry. Alexandre was having a culinary extravaganza. She felt a stab of irritation as she saw his bliss with his own world while she floundered in hers. Here he was, happily planning on staying up until three or four in the morning when all she wanted to do was collapse into bed. Life was so unfair.
    She kicked off her shoes angrily, unclipped the heavy pistol from her belt, and clunked it down on the enormous farm table that filled the room.
    Alexandre swept her up in a bear hug. “Poor bébé. Tough flics don’t cry.”
    â€œThe hell they don’t.” Capucine kicked him in the shin with her stockinged foot, only half playfully.
    â€œBaby,” Alexandre crooned on, “what are those appalling Gestapo types doing to you? You must quit that dreadful job immediately and take up a life of writing endlessly boring monographs on the sociopsychology of crime. That way you can spend