Читать книгу One More Croissant for the Road онлайн

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The boss appraises the situation with a cursory glance.

‘Look behind you,’ he tells me. ‘What’s in there?’

I turn to see a Perspex box a little over half full of vicious-looking flick knives and something that appears to be a large cutlass.

‘Offensive weapons?’ I suggest tentatively.

‘THEY’RE THE SAME,’ he says firmly. (They’re totally not.)

It seems because my little knife has a locking function (useful with a crag of Alpine cheese, or a well-matured saucisson), it’s illegal under UK law – but possibly because I’m at serious risk of Making a Scene, and seem unlikely to stab anyone but customs officials, I’m eventually allowed to keep it on the strict basis that I never attempt to travel with it again. As the homeward leg seems laughably far off, I make the promise in good faith and we’re allowed to pedal off with picnic kit intact. Matt swears blind he hears one of them mutter that it was more trouble than it was worth to fill in the confiscation paperwork, but I prefer to believe that I just don’t look like the kind of girl to go on the rampage with a steak knife. (In Paris, five weeks later, this same knife is waved through by security guards at the Musée d’Orsay, who presumably realise any civilised person likes picnics too much to want to slash Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe.)