Bordeaux 2024 Primeurs: St Julien
The sun gradually slipped below the distant horizon, and darkness began to creep across the boardwalk and into the narrow streets of Pauillac, where I had just finished a long day of tasting.
I glanced sideways, as furtively as I could manage.
Nope, still there.
I sat, motionless, as eons seemed to pass, my gaze fixed on the thin white tower of the Phare de Patiras, the lighthouse which stands on the Île de Patiras, one of the larger islands of the Gironde estuary. I have long dreamed of taking one of the ferries across the Gironde when travelling between left and right banks, rather than contributing to the gridlock across the Pont d’Aquitaine. Maybe, if I did, I could stop off on one of the islands on the way? Many this primeurs trip would give me the time?
Another glance.
Still there.
I plucked up the courage to take a more considered look.
The gentleman who had sat next to me seemed as if he had stepped into my day from another time. He was wrapped up against the increasingly cool evening air, sporting a smartly sculpted paletot overcoat in dark grey with black velvet collar, along with a cashmere scarf in a rich Westminster blue. With one hand he held a fedora pressed lightly against his chest. And I could not help but notice his crisply drawn moustache, beneath immaculately coiffured waves of black hair sculpted with pomade.
Most disconcerting, though, was that slight shimmer, and his diaphanous density. Unless I was mistaken – which isn’t the case, obviously, because I’m the one writing all this – I could see right through this individual to the bench and trees behind.
It all looked very 1930s. I racked my brains for where I had seen such dress before. And then it came to me.
“Are you Hercule Poirot?” I enquired, trying to control the waver in my voice.
