Free Grand Cru Heist by Jean-Pierre Alaux, noel, Jean-Pierre, Balen Page A

moment to give you a break. Don’t forget to mention that your boss is back from vacation.”
    Cooker’s sudden frivolity seemed to cheer Hubert de Boüard up a bit. He put his cigar back in his mouth and took two puffs before reading the morning newspapers with his friend. The Angélus gang had not struck again. Or at least not yet.
    § § §
    An hour later, Elisabeth Cooker walked into her husband’s office without knocking. Cooker knew that she rarely did this, and it reflected just how happy she was that he had recovered his notebook. She greeted the Angélus estate owner with effusive kisses on his cheeks.
    “What? Where’s the champagne?”
    “True, after all, why not?” Cooker said affably.
    “Jacqueline, please, four champagne glasses. Let’s uncork that Dom Pérignon that’s been waiting in the storeroom refrigerator.”
    They all raised a toast to Cooker’s health, the returned notebook, the rating given to the 2000 Angélus, and all others who praised that exceptional wine. Hubert forgot his worries and promised to drop the three cards off at the Libourne police station. Cooker invited him to join them at the Saint James for lunch.
    “Hubert, I’m sure it’s just some bad joke. You need to get your mind off it. A good meal is exactly what you need.”
    “I don’t want to get in the way of you two lovebirds.”
    “Oh come on, you’re like family.”
    The three friends crossed the Allées de Tourny under a golf umbrella to reach Hubert de Boüard’s Range Rover, which was double parked on the Rue de Sèze. A soppy, barely legible parking ticket on the windshield did not even dampen the trio’s mood.
    “Some more mail,” Cooker said with a smirk.
    § § §
    Lunch at the Saint James lasted well into the afternoon. It was a pretext for the head sommelier to get the famous and expert diners to taste some of his wines. Elisabeth listened, tasted, and added her two cents. She seemed happy to see that her husband’s enthusiasm had returned. In the restaurant parking lot, Cooker contemplated not returning to his office and going home to enjoy Grangebelle under the rain. He pictured a fire in the fireplace, Bacchus at his feet, a call to Margaux—it was only noon in New York—and a cup of Nepalese tea, the one his tea-loving friend Gilles Brochard had sent him.
    Then he changed his mind. He had too much work to do. Hundreds of tasting samples awaited him, and he needed to swing by the lab and make sure Alexandrine de la Palussière was on those cases of eutypiosis in the Côtes du Marmandais and the Entre-Deux-Mers. The vines were rotting, and radical treatment was needed. New regulations forbade the use of sodium arsenite. Virgile would have to monitor the endemic proliferation of the damned fungus that was eating away at the vine stock. No French vineyard had been spared. And the recent rain was not helping. It was pruning season, and shears propagated the infection. Naturally, Cooker & Co. recommended the intensive use of a fungicide like benomyl to at least contain the spread, but that required time and a lot of meticulous work. His office was drowning in calls for help, and dawdling at home would be criminal. Cooker was starting to feel guilty.
    He gave Elisabeth a tender kiss and reassured her that he would be all right. On the left bank of the Garonne River, behind a curtain of rain, Bordeaux looked like a bad watercolor. Cooker would have to face the traffic on the Pont de Pierre. When would the work be done on the tramway?
    § § §
    Cooker did not recognize him at first. Wearing an off-white raincoat, a long woolen scarf, and a checked hunting cap, the man looked like a wading bird emerging from a marsh. He was waiting in the reception area. When he saw the winemaker, he smiled to hide his discomfort.
    “This gentleman has been here since the beginning of the afternoon,” Jacqueline was quick to say. “He would like to see you. He says he knows you.”
    “We do know each other, in