Proof - By Dick Francis Page 0,67

in itself a minor heresy. ‘I’m all for escape.’

He gave me a dry look which I didn’t at first understand, and only belatedly remembered my rush down the yard.

‘Well… as long as I’m not being robbed.’

He nodded sardonically and waited through two more sales and a discussion about whether Sauternes would go with lamb chops, which it wouldn’t; they would each taste dreadful.

‘What goes with Sauternes then? I like Sauternes.’

‘Anything sweet,’ I said. ‘Also perhaps curry. Or ham. Also blue cheese.’

‘(rood heavens,’ said Gerard when he’d gone. ‘Blue cheese with sweet wine… how odd.’

‘Wine and cheese parties thrive on it.’

He looked round the shop as if at a new world. ‘Is there anything you can’t drink wine with?’ he said.

‘As far as I’m concerned… grapefruit.’

He made a face.

‘And that’s from one,’ I said, ‘who drinks wine with baked beans… who practically scrubs his teeth in it.’

‘You really love it?’

I nodded. ‘Nature’s magical accident.’

‘What?’

‘That the fungus on grapes turns the sugar in grape juice to alcohol. That the result is delicious.’

‘For heaven’s sake…’

‘No one could have invented it,’ I said. ‘It’s just there. A gift to the planet. Elegant.’

‘But there are all sorts of different wines.’

‘Oh, sure, because there are different sorts of grapes. But a lot of champagne is made from black-skinned grapes… things may not be as they seem, which should please you as a detective.’

‘Hm,’ he said dryly. His glance roved over the racks of bottles. ‘As a detective what pleases me is proof… so what’s proof?’

‘If you mix a liquid with gunpowder and ignite it, and it burns with a steady blue flame, that’s proof.’

He looked faintly bemused. ‘Proof of what?’

‘Proof that the liquid is at least fifty per cent alcohol. That’s how they proved a liquid was alcohol three centuries ago when they first put a tax on distilled spirits. Fifty percent alcohol, one hundred percent proved. They measure the percentage now with hydrometers, not gunpowder and fire. Less risky, I dare say.’

‘Gunpowder,’ he said, ‘is something you and I have had too much of recently.’ He stood up stiffly. ‘Your half-hour is up. I’ll get the food.’

FOURTEEN

Gerard followed me home in his mended Mercedes and came into the house bearing Sung Li’s fragrant parcels.

‘You call this a cottage?’ he said sceptically, looking at perspectives. ‘More like a palace.’

‘It was a cottage beside a barn, both of them falling to pieces. The barn was bigger than the cottage… hence the space.’

We had joyfully planned that house, Emma and I, shaping the rooms to fit what we’d expected to be our lives, making provision for children. A big kitchen for family meals; a sitting room, future playroom; a dining room for friends; many bedrooms; a large quiet drawing room, splendid for parties. The conversion, done in three stages as we could afford it, had taken nearly five years. Emma had contentedly waited, wanting the nest to be ready for the chicks, and almost the moment it was done she had become pregnant.

Gerard and I had come into the house through the kitchen, but I seldom ate there any more. When the food was re-heated and in dishes we transferred it to the sitting room, putting it on a coffee table between two comfortable chairs and eating with our plates balanced on our knees.

It was in that warm looking room with its bookshelves, soft lamplight, television, photographs and rugs that I mostly lived, when I was there at all. It was there that I now kept a wine rack and glasses lazily to hand and averted my mind from chores like gardening. It was there, I dare say, that my energy was chronically at its lowest ebb, yet it was to there also that I instinctively returned.

Gerard looked better for the food, settling deep into his chair when he’d finished with a sigh of relaxation. He put his arm back in its sling and accepted coffee and a second glass of Californian wine, a 1978 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon I’d been recently selling and liked very much myself.

‘It’s come a long way,’ Gerard observed, reading the label.

‘And going further,’ I said. ‘California’s growing grapes like crazy, and their best wine is world class.’

He drank a little and shook his head, it’s pleasant enough but I honestly couldn’t tell it from any old plonk. A terrible admission, but there you are.’

‘Just what the Silver Moondance ordered… customers like you.’

He smiled. ‘And I’d guess I’m in the majority.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Liking wine at all is the main thing.’

He said, ‘You were