The Monk Who Went to Ground

CHAPTER ONE: À Cannes

"Bonjour, Madame Valois," she said. "Je vais."

Anne-Sophie Gaubert stepped lightly from the elevator and waved at the concierge as she headed out of the building's lobby.

Madame Valois always wore black and always sat by the entrance, where she was forever knitting clothing for her grandchildren. Today, it appeared to be a one-piece for her youngest, who was a year old. "Bonne journée madame," she said to her hands in an off-handed fashion, then she peered at Gaubert over the tops of her reading glasses. "Allez-vous à la plage?"

Anne-Sophie wore a white one-piece bathing suit under a light flowy kimono, a wide-brimmed straw hat, enormous black sunglasses, and leather sandals on her feet. A bag of woven straw depended from the crook of her right arm, containing a towel, a glass bottle filled with purified water, and a small bottle of suntanning lotion. "Oui madame. Je pense que le Plage du Casino."

Plage du Casino was a public beach within walking distance of Gaubert's apartment. Situated between La Plage du Majestic Beach Club and the end of Promenade Robert Favre le Bret, it was close to the Palais des Festivals and was the first on the La Croisette stretch. Besides sunbathing or swimming, there were a whole host of coffee shops, snack stalls and cafés on the beach side, and restaurants along the promenade.

Madame Valois bid her have an enjoyable time, and Gaubert stepped out.

Cannes as a town sloped up and away from the beach. By following gravity, you would eventually run into one.

Gaubert turned right on rue Hoche and walked at a calm, even pace. The woman who operated the corner boulangerie waved at her, and Gaubert nodded back with a smile. Then she turned down rue des Serbes and followed it toward the Hotel Barrière

She was strikingly pretty, tall and leggy, and blessed with a wide proud bosom. She had come to Cannes two years before to pursue a career in film, in part because of that chest. And while not yet lucrative, she had had a few small parts in motion pictures. Notably, an American film crew making a European-set 'beach blanket bingo' movie had paid her to dance in the sand at Ile Sainte Marguerite in a bikini. She had also been a slave-girl extra in a Sandokan pirate movie and spoke a line of dialog with Steve Reeves—left, sadly, on the cutting room floor.

She'd gone on several dates with one of the producers of the American bikini movie, and he'd told her, late at night, that she didn't have much of a chance for a career. Pretty face with sharp Slavic features, great boobies, but she was too wide in the hips. And there was nothing you can do about that short of working only in the sort of costume dramas that drape women in yards of fabric.

However, Gaubert remained committed to her career. She had given up her entire life, and everything that she knew, to come to France—Paris first, and then Cannes. The opinion of one man, no matter how knowledgeable he might be, wasn't enough to dissuade her.

She passed under the shadows of the tall palms that dotted rue des Serbes, swinging her bag. Yes, her career wasn't at the place where she wanted it—yet—but otherwise she had a good life. Her apartment on rue Hoche was spacious and far better than where she'd come from, she had money to spare, and she was her own woman.

Things were good.

Gaubert paused at an open stall at the corner where rue Notre Dame let into rue des Serbes. She looked at a bin of oranges from Valencia, offering a million-dollar smile to the grocer. "Ceux-ci, s'il vous plaît."

The grocer selected several small oranges the way a billiard's expert would collect balls, and dropped them into an open paper sack.

As he worked, Gaubert glanced around the street.