Peter May - Freeze Frames

And so, as before, he turned to the computer, rebooting it and connecting again to the Internet. For a moment he paused to take in Killian’s desktop. His laptop sitting on it at an angle, four open volumes of the Everyman encyclopedia, the desk diary pushed to one side. Killian’s sense of order would have been grossly offended. Google popped up on his screen, and he turned his concentration back to the search, typing in Simon Wiesenthal and hitting the return key. There were more than half a million entries. Again, he went to Wikipedia and began reading.

The man had written three books on his experiences and opened numerous centres around the world before dying in 2005 at the age of ninety-six. Still, Enzo could not find any logical connection to Paris. He clicked on a link to the entry on the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles and read its mission statement describing it as an international Jewish human rights organisation dedicated to repairing the world one step at a time. Quite a task, Enzo thought.

He scrolled down the entry until he came to the section on Office Locations. There were five other centres around the world. New York, Miami, Toronto, Jerusalem, Buenos Aires. And Paris. Enzo held his breath. Perhaps this was the link he had been looking for.

He went back to Google and tapped in Simon Wiesenthal Center Paris. More than thirty-two thousand links appeared. But the third from the top took him directly to the website of the Wiesenthal organisation’s European operation. The office was in the seventeenth arrondissement, in the rue Laugier, and had been established there in 1988. Before Killian’s death. Had he been in contact with them for some reason? If so, surely they would have a record.

Enzo scrolled down the home page until he reached the contact details at the foot of it. There was an email address and a link that opened up his emailer. He tapped in a subject line, KILLIAN CONTACT, and composed a short mail.

Sirs,

I am conducting an investigation into the death of a British citizen in France in the year 1990. I have reason to believe that he may have been in contact with you around this time. His name was Adam Killian. I would be most grateful if you could tell me if you have any record of such contact. My bone fides can be checked by following the link (below) to my page on the website of the University of Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, where I head up the faculty on forensic science.

With best wishes,

Professor Enzo Macleod.

He hit the send button and off it went, carrying with it more hope than expectation.

For a long time he sat then, just staring at the screen, until it almost burned out on his retinas. He leaned his elbows on the desk and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands, and then blinked them, bloodshot, in the direction of the window. The cat was still there, pressing itself against the glass, still staring in at him.

For the second time that night, Enzo was startled awake. This time, it was sunlight streaming through the unshuttered windows of Killian’s study that woke him. At some point in his deliberations, he had cleared a space on the desk in front of him and folded his arms on the dekstop to create a pillow for his head. He had closed his eyes, intending simply to rest them while he thought. And now, three hours later, he wakened almost rigid with the cold.

Pale yellow light slanted in at a low angle, falling across the chaos that was now Killian’s desktop. He straightened himself stiffly, painfully, and stretched his arms above his head as he yawned. The cat was gone, along with the still of the night. Enzo shivered. He stood up and stamped several times to try to get the blood back into his feet.

He replayed everything he had learned, everything he now knew. About Ronald Ross and his mosquito poem. About the earthquake in Agadir, the man who had not died, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Paris. More than ever, he was convinced that none of this connected to to Thibaud Kerjean. The man had been a blinding red herring, both then and now. He had stolen the focus of every investigation into this case, when all the time the clues had been in the books.

Enzo stood stock still.

Even as the words formed in his mind, realisation dawned. He tipped his head back and yelled at the ceiling. “Jesus Christ!” His voice reverberated around the room. Why on earth had he not seen it immediately? It was so childishly simple. And yet, how often was it that the most obvious was overlooked? That the most cunning place to hide anything was always in plain sight?

Strands of mist washed up all along the shore, lingering among the trees where splintered sunlight seemed suspended in long, slanting fingers. The dew on the grass, almost white, sparkled like frost in the early morning light.

Enzo felt it soak through his slippers as he crossed the lawn, leaving dark tracks in his wake. He pulled his robe tightly around himself as he banged hard on the back door of the house. He knew that Jane was up, because he had seen the smoke drifting lazily into the sunlight from the chimney on the east gable. But like Enzo, she had not yet dressed, and peered at him, dishevelled and a little bleary, through the crack in the door that opened up.

“Oh!” She seemed startled to see him. “I’m still a mess.”

“So am I.”

“I can see that.”

He could barely contain his impatience. “Look, it doesn’t matter what either of us looks like, I’ve made a breakthrough.”

She opened the door a little wider, forgetting her appearance. She looked older in the cold light of day, without make-up to paper over the early morning cracks. “In Papa’s murder?”

“Yes.” He scratched his head. “Listen, you told Charlotte that when Peter was a boy, his father used to play word games with him to increase his vocabulary.”

“That’s right.”

“What games?”

She shrugged. “Peter never said. I have no idea.”

Enzo reached out his hand to take hers. “Well, I do. Come on.”

“Hey! It’s freezing out there!”

“Tell me about it.” Enzo almost dragged her across the lawn behind him. She ran to keep up. They both left wet footprints on the floor as Enzo led her into Killian’s study. She looked at the mess of open books on the desktop, and then at Enzo. “What have you found?”

“Messages. Left in the encyclopaedias. Pages marked with post-its, entries highlighted with a marker pen.”

“What messages?”

“Nothing that makes much sense to me yet. Although that’ll come, I’m sure. But the point is this. Just ask yourself. Where were the clues?”

She looked at him blankly.

“Where did I find these clues?” He waved his hand at the open volumes on the desk.

She shrugged, not fully understanding. “In the books, I guess.”

“Exactly.” He took her hand again and dragged her across the room to the tiny kitchen leading off it. He ripped the post-it off the fridge door and handed it to her. “What does it say?”

Her face was a mask of incomprehension. “You know what it says.”

“Read it out loud.”

She sighed in exasperation. “The cooks have the blues.”

He looked at her expectantly, waiting for the penny to drop. But it didn’t. “Haven’t you ever heard of Doctor Spooner?” She frowned. “Doctor William Archibald Spooner. A professor at New College, Oxford, in the nineteenth century. He was an albino, and had occasional problems with the spoken word, a nervous tendency sometimes to transpose initial letters. It used to amuse his students so much they started inventing their own transpositions, and called them Spoonerisms.” He paused, eyes shining, and she looked again at the post-it in her hand.

“The books have the clues,” she read. And she looked up, her face suddenly flushed. “Oh, my God!” Her eyes turned toward the magnetic message board and she prised it free of its grip on the fridge. This time she read, “A fit of the blood will foil the beast.” Her eyes darted toward Enzo, infected now by his excitement. “What does that mean?”