Peter May - Freeze Frames

It was the same bitterness that had seeped out of her just moments earlier. This was a woman, Enzo realised, who had simply never been able to put her life back on the rails after the death of her husband and the telephone call that presaged the murder of his father. If fate had indeed brought her and her perfect partner together, then it had also torn her life asunder. And perhaps the only comfort she could take from the thought was that, after all, she really did mean something in the great scheme of things.

Almost as if she sensed his perception of her, she smiled, a wry smile dissipating that bitterness and self-pity. “But I really do try not to think too much about such things, Enzo. I don’t want to end up a bitter and twisted old widow.” Almost as if she feared that’s exactly what she’d become.

The shrimp arrived and for a few minutes became the focus of Enzo’s attention, soft flesh dissolving in a creamy garlic sauce to be washed over by more M e moire. When he looked up again, he found Jane watching him. “Interesting eyes. One brown, one blue.”

“Waardenburg Syndrome. Which also gives me the silver stripe in my hair.”

She nodded. “So what was it that brought you to France, Enzo?” But before he could answer she added, “Curious name for a Scotsman.”

“Italian mother. It’s short for Lorenzo.”

“Ah.”

“The ferry.”

She frowned her confusion. “What?”

“You asked me what brought me to France. Sealink ferry from Dover to Calais, then a ten-hour drive down to Cahors.” He saw dimples materialise in her cheeks as she pursed her lips, and he grinned. “I’m sorry. It was a woman, of course. A French woman. That perfect partner that fate reserves for the lucky few, then takes away again-just so you don’t get the idea that you’re something special.”

“Oh.” Her smile faded instantly. “What happened?”

“She died in childbirth.”

“How long ago was that?

“My daughter has not long turned twenty-two.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged. “I was, too. But it’s a long time ago now. I always think I’ve put it behind me. But every time my daughter has a birthday, I’m reminded that it’s the anniversary of her mother’s death. I’d love to just let it pass, but you can hardly ignore your baby’s birthday, can you?”

“You never remarried?”

He sipped his wine and glanced at her over his glass. “No.” He was not unaware of the similarities between them.

“Why not?”

“Do I really need to answer that, Jane? You did it yourself.”

She nodded, and he realised that perhaps the only reason he had divined the bitterness and self-pity in Jane was because they were things he recognised in himself. They shared a moment of silent empathy before she abruptly changed the subject.

“How did you get involved in solving the cold cases in Raffin’s book?”

He shook his head and grinned. “Because I was an idiot. I worked as a forensic scientist in Scotland, Jane, but had to give it up when I came to France. I ended up teaching. Solving Raffin’s cold cases started out as a bet. I’d kept myself up to date with the latest developments in forensics, and figured that new science applied to old cases could bring new results.”

“With a hundred percent success rate to date, I’m told.”

Enzo inclined his head. “It’s never quite that simple. And there are some cases in which science plays little or no part.” He hesitated for a moment. “Don’t raise your hopes too high. I’m not sure I can live up to them.”

She nodded. “In a way I have no expectations at all. After all this time, and the number of people who’ve come and looked and left none the wiser, it seems to me that whatever it was Papa wanted Peter to know, only Peter could divine.” She sat back as the waitress came and took their plates, and waited until they were alone again. “They were terribly close, Peter and his father. Much closer that I ever was to either of my parents. In a way they were hard to separate. Peter was like a clone of his father, a repeat version of the man. Which, I suppose, is why I felt such an affinity with his Papa. And why I took his death almost as badly. One came so hard on the heels of the other it was almost too much to bear. The only thing that kept me focused during those dark days was the promise he forced me to make during that phone call. It was the reason I had to carry on.”

And it occurred to Enzo that if keeping her promise is what had motivated her to get through that time, the fulfilment of it might leave a hole in her life that could be very hard to fill. And that while desperate to be free, finally, of what she had earlier described as a curse, that freedom might also steal away her only raison d’etre. She was an intelligent woman. And it was a dichotomy, he was sure, of which she was only too aware.

Enzo’s fish arrived. Pan-fried whole dorade. Soft, moist flesh, butter, garlic, crumbling floury potatoes. And it took all his attention, separating white flakes from fine bones, as they ate in silence until looking up to exchange smiles of shared pleasure.

“That was great,” Enzo said. And after the cold and the rain, he felt almost restored. But he waited until their coffees arrived before asking the question that had been on his mind for some days. “The thing,” he said, “that has bothered me most since I first read about this case, was why anyone would bother to murder a terminally ill man.”

But Jane just shrugged. “I’m not sure that many people knew he was dying. Relatives and close friends, really. It’s not exactly the sort of thing you advertise.”

“No.” Enzo knew only too well from his brief experience of being diagnosed with a terminal illness, that it was not something you wanted to share. It was almost as if by acknowledging it, you were accepting it. “Who did know, then?

“I don’t know exactly. His doctor, obviously. Peter and I. And I don’t know who else he might have told. Certainly not Kerjean. Papa didn’t really have what you would call close friends on the island. People knew him. He was regarded as something of an eccentric, I think. But he wasn’t a man with an active social life, and after the diagnosis, he went out less and less.”

To Enzo’s surprise, when they stepped out into the street, the rain had stopped. It had seemed as if it were set to last for days. But unexpectedly the sky had cleared, and stars crusted its inky firmament like frost on black ice. Jane had loaned him one of Killian’s scarves, and he tightened it around his neck as they walked down the hill toward the harbour, breath billowing around their heads. The soft feel of it brought him in contact once again with the man whose death he had come to resolve. There was a smell from the scarf that he had noticed when she first gave it to him. A slightly stale, slightly perfumed smell. But masculine. Something that spoke of body sweat and aftershave. A long, lingering reminder of a man whose life had been so brutally taken all those years before. A presence that he had left on this earth, long after his passing. And in an odd way, it connected him to Enzo. Made it personal somehow. As if the old man had bequeathed a message to him, too.

As they passed the Eco-Museum on their right, the harbour opened up below them, bathed in a wash of moonlight that shone on every wet surface, as if all had been newly painted and the paint had not yet dried.

Rows of sailing boats tethered along the quay clunked and bumped and rocked on the gentle swell of the inner harbour, the air filled with the sound of metal cables clattering against steel masts. Lights from the hotels and cafes that lined the harbour row reflected on the black waters of the bay, broken by its ruffled surface into myriad splinters that flashed and vanished, moments in eternity only fractionally less brief than the lives of men.