Christie rolled her eyes. “Let me guess.”

Max nodded. “You’re right. The gray area is now so gray it’s almost black. Much more complex than he had originally thought. Extensive investigation in France, probably a trip to California to consult authorities there, no stone to be left unturned, all that stuff. Months of research. He sounded very cheerful about it.”

Even before Max had finished speaking, Christie’s head had been shaking slowly from side to side. “Why am I not surprised?” she said. “I used to live with a lawyer, remember? God, it’s like-well, as my ex once said when he’d had too many beers, it’s like milking a mouse. You know? Trying to squeeze something out that isn’t there. They all do it.” With a look of high disdain on her face, she reached for her cigarettes.

“Calvados?”

“Absolutely.”

Leaving the restaurant, they saw that an after-dinner boules game-or perhaps the same game-was being played by the light of moth-freckled street lamps. The contestants looked identical to those playing earlier: the same wiry, wizened old men, still wearing their caps, the same endless flow of loquacious dispute. One of them saw Christie and nudged the man standing next to him. As she passed, he shook one hand vigorously from the wrist, as though he’d burned it, and gave her a smile that glinted with gold fillings.

“What does that mean?” said Christie.

Max thought for a moment. “One-nil to California, I’d say.”

Fifteen

Max was still dripping from the shower when his phone rang. It was Charlie, a joyful Charlie, sounding like a prisoner who had just received word of his reprieve.

“One more day of this nonsense,” he said, “and then I’m yours. I’ll be over tomorrow. All I have to do today is survive a lecture on offshore mortgage opportunities for those lucky buggers with seven-figure incomes, followed by what will no doubt be a thrilling Q & A session on the tax implications of secondary residence ownership. Want to come?”

“Slow going, is it?” said Max.

“I’ve had more fun at funerals.”

“Charlie, I’ve got some good news for you on the wine front-well, I think it’s good news. It would take too long to explain now; things are a little complicated here. But I’ll fill you in when I see you tomorrow.”

“Can’t wait. Oh, by the way, I’ve got some smoked salmon and Cumberland sausages for you. I stuffed them in my minibar, so they should be OK. Couldn’t think of anything else you’d like, apart from Kate Moss, and she’s busy.”

Max was smiling as he put down the phone. The call had reminded him that Charlie-one of those rare and precious people who are consistently cheerful-was just about the only part of his previous life in London that he missed. He went to find Madame Passepartout.

She received the prospect of another guest-a special guest, as Max had described him-with avid curiosity mixed with mild alarm at such short notice. A gentleman from London, undoubtedly a person of quality and consequence, possibly even an English milor, and she was supposed to have everything comme il faut in twenty-four hours. There were a thousand things to do, possibly more: towels, sheets, flowers, a decanter of cognac for the bedside table (it being well known that the better class of Englishman is partial to his nightcap); and then the mattress must be turned and aired, the windows made to gleam, the old armoire given a thorough polish, and all traces of insect life removed.

She stood with her hands on her hips, catching her breath after this breakneck recitation, while Max tried to reassure her. Perhaps he had inflated Charlie’s credentials. “Actually, he’s just a very old friend,” he said. “He’s not expecting the Ritz.”

“Mais quand même!” Madame Passepartout chose to be unconvinced, looking at her watch and almost pawing the ground in her eagerness to prepare for Charlie’s coming. “It would oblige me, Monsieur Max, if you and mademoiselle were to remove yourselves from the house today, so that I can work without distraction. The weather is most agreeable. I suggest a pique-nique.” The suggestion was delivered in a tone of voice that did not invite any discussion.

To Max’s surprise, the thought appealed to Christie, who had come down to the kitchen and was groping her way toward her first cup of coffee. “Great,” she said, from the depths of her early-morning coma. “Love picnics.” Within ten minutes, they had been ejected from the house and were standing by the car, equipped with a map, a corkscrew, and absolutely no clear idea of where they were going.

Inspiration came while they were in the village. They had bought the ingredients for a simple lunch and were getting bread when Christie’s eye was caught by something pinned to the baker’s notice board. There, among the photographs of missing cats and details of secondhand domestic and agricultural articles for sale at prix d’ami, was the card of a farm outside the village offering horses to rent for what were described as pique-niques hippiques in the Luberon.

“Is this what I think it is?” Christie asked Max. “Pique-nique I can just about work out, and there’s a picture of a horse, so I guess it’s horseback picnics, right? How terrific.”

“Can you ride?”

“Sure. Can’t you?”

Max shared Oscar Wilde’s view that horses were dangerous at each end and uncomfortable in the middle, and remembered his first and, so far, last attempt at riding. The horse had shrugged him off even before he was settled in the saddle, and had then stood looking down at him, lips drawn back in a ghastly yellow-toothed smile utterly devoid of sympathy. “I tried it once,” he said. “But the horse won.”

“Come on,” said Christie. “It’s just like riding a bicycle. Nothing to it.”

Half an hour later they were standing in the paddock next to two amiable and outwardly docile horses. The farmer had given Max a rough, hand-drawn map of the bridle paths-although, as he said, the horses knew them so well they could find their way blindfolded. Christie swung up into the saddle, smooth and easy, as Max put a tentative foot in the stirrup.

“No, Max. Other side. You always mount on the left.”

“Why?” The horse turned his head and gave Max a reproachful look.

“I’m not exactly sure,” said Christie. “But you just do. I think it’s got something to do with your sword. You know? So it doesn’t get tangled up with your legs?”

“Of course,” said Max. “My sword. Silly of me.” He scrambled into the saddle, and, without any urging, the horse set off at an unhurried, stately walk.

It wasn’t very long before Max had forgotten his apprehension and was feeling, if not relaxed, then slightly less tense, and was even beginning to enjoy the unfamiliar but increasingly pleasant sensation of sitting on a large, living creature in motion. He breathed in the smell of warm horse and old leather, shifted his weight in the creaking saddle, tried to appear nonchalant, and started to pay more attention to the scenery. They were in single file, going upward all the time, the horses picking their way slowly along the narrow stony path through a tangle of broom and boxwood, their hooves crushing the rosemary and thyme that seemed to grow out of every rock. The views, carpeted in different shades of green, became more and more spectacular as they climbed toward the top.

Two hours of gentle riding took them to the highest point on the Luberon, marked on the farmer’s map as the Mourre Nègre, more than thirty-five hundred feet above sea level. The loudest sound was the soft whiffle of the horses’ breath. They hadn’t seen or heard a soul since they started off.

Christie tethered the horses in the shade of a scrub oak while Max unpacked the bread and sausage, the cheese and fruit, and a bottle of red wine, warmed by its proximity to the horse until it had reached the temperature of a well-heated room. He stretched to ease the stiffness in a back that had been held more or less rigid during the ride up, and looked around.