Free The Marseille Caper by Peter Mayle Page A

terminology was a little more subtle. There were “mounting concerns” about the “unacceptable situation.” References to the “exceptional fragility” of the market. Regrets that Lord Wapping had been so difficult to contact. And, in every case, there was the urgent wish for Lord Wapping’s presence so that matters could be resolved.
    “So there you go,” said Prendergast. “They’re out for blood. Their next step is to call in the law. This is it, Billy. Shit or bust.”
    Wapping was spared further bad news by the arrival ofAnnabel, burnished from a morning spent on the sunbathing deck and dressed for lunch in white jeans and white T-shirt, both one size too tight.
    “Sweetie,” she said, “I’m just a tiny bit worried about the time.” She looked at her watch, one of Cartier’s finest. “How long does it take to fly to Monaco? Mustn’t be late for lunch—I think one of the royals is going to be there, très incognito. One of the Monaco royals, of course, but still.”
    Ray Prendergast looked up at Annabel, feeling once again a dislike that he’d done his best to conceal since her arrival last year in the Wapping menagerie. A stuck-up bit of posh, he called her privately, out for all she could get, and with ambitions to become the fourth Lady Wapping. In every way, she was an unnecessary expense. And yet Wapping seemed to dote on her. Prendergast tapped the papers in front of him. “Before you go, Billy.”
    Wapping aimed a shrug of apology at Annabel. “Tell Tiny to warm her up,” he said. “I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
    Annabel blew him a kiss, scooped up a crocodile handbag the size of a military backpack, and disappeared in the direction of the helicopter.
    Wapping glanced down at the papers and ground the remains of his cigar into a crystal ashtray. “Right. E-mail all of them. Tell them I’m deeply involved in final negotiations that will secure a massive construction project in Marseille. These negotiations will be concluded within the next week or two, and I will then return to London to share the good news personally with them.” Wapping got to his feet, brushingcigar ash from his shirt front. “There. That should hold the bastards.”
    “Let’s hope so, Billy. Let’s hope so.”
    It is a short, steep walk from the Vieux Port to a magnificent arrangement of buildings known to the Marseillais as La Vieille Charité, or simply La Charité. It was conceived by Pierre Puget, a native of Marseille who became the court architect of Louis XIV, and because of this impeccable architectural pedigree, Patrimonio had chosen it as an appropriate setting for the reception. The evening was to be a kind of premiere—the first time that the three models put forward by Sam and his competitors would be on display, and Sam was anxious to make sure that his model had been correctly installed.
    He made his way up through the narrow, twisting streets of the ancient neighborhood known as Le Panier, where Puget had been born in 1620 (by extraordinary coincidence, in a house overlooking the site of the masterpiece he designed nearly fifty years later). As he walked, Sam went back over some of the history of the area he had picked up from conversations with Reboul.
    Originally, despite its name, La Charité had been little more than a decorative prison, a place to put the beggars and vagabonds that infested Marseille’s streets at the time. Things were so bad that the city was known as a gigantic cour des miracles , an ironic term, to say the least, for a slum, and the merchants of Marseille decided that they could no longer tolerateit. Criminal elements, after all, were bad for business. And so they were rounded up, shut away, and only allowed out to work as forced labor. So much for charity.
    Things got a little better after the Revolution. The elderly and infirm, the destitute and homeless were taken in, but not forced to work. And so La Charité staggered along until it was closed at the