Peter May - Blowback

He closed his eyes, his mind turning over furiously. Some people, he knew, used the names of their children, but he had no idea what Marc and Elisabeth’s children were called. He tried Elisabeth, without success. Then Marc’s first and second names separately, followed by his date of birth. Nothing. He sighed and sat back in frustration, and found his eyes wandering over the doodles on Fraysse’s blotter. They came to rest on the quotation from Sartre: la nature parle et l’experience traduit. As with the letters, JR, Fraysse had gone over again and again the initial letters of each word in the quotation, so that they stood out quite markedly. He didn’t believe for one moment that Fraysse had done it consciously, but rather sub-consciously, perhaps while speaking on the telephone. But together, those initial letters produced the acronym lnpelt. It was a seriously long shot, but Enzo turned back to the keyboard and typed the letters into the password window and hit the return key. The large empty window to the right immediately filled with text, and the scrollbar revealed that there was a lot of it.

But Enzo had no time to scan even a few sentences. He heard the door opening into the bedroom next door from the living room beyond, and his heart pushed pulsing up into his throat. Someone was in the bedroom. Perhaps just the maid. But it was equally possible that it could be Elisabeth. What to do?

As quickly as he could he re-typed the password, which he had to do twice before it would lock the document. Then he shut it down. He fumbled in his jacket pocket for the memory stick he always carried with him and plugged it into the USB socket. When its icon appeared, he dragged and dropped the document on to it, and it began to copy. Infuriatingly slowly. He could hear the unknown person moving about in the next room. “Come on, come on!” he muttered under his breath, through clenched teeth. He stopped breathing as the progress bar moved painfully, protractedly, from left to right, before finally the transfer was complete and he sucked air back into his lungs. He ejected the icon and pulled the memory stick from its socket, stuffing it into his pocket and rising to his feet as the door from the bedroom swung open.

He turned, hoping to see the maid. But it was Elisabeth who stood there, her right palm placed flat against her chest. She seemed startled, even shocked, to find him there. “Monsieur Macleod!”

Enzo did his best to seem relaxed. “Just taking a look at your husband’s computer, Madame Fraysse. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“You startled me. The staff never come in here. So when I heard movement I thought perhaps we had an intruder.”

Enzo grinned self-consciously. “Just me.”

“It is customary, Monsieur Macleod, in polite society, to ask permission to view private belongings. Even those of a deceased person.”

There was no mistaking the controlled anger in her voice.

“My apologies, madame. Since you had shown me in here yesterday, I didn’t feel I was intruding on privacy. And I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Well, you have. I have nothing to hide from you, Monsieur Macleod, and am happy to show you whatever you want to see. But, I would like to be asked.”

Enzo nodded contritely. “I appreciate that, madame. My apologies again, if I upset or startled you.” He glanced at the computer. “Shall I close it down?”

“No, that’s alright.”

They stood for a moment in awkward silence. Then Enzo forced a smile. “Well. I’ll leave you in peace, then.” He turned toward the door.

“Monsieur Macleod?”

He stopped, and turned, the door half open. “Yes?”

“Did you find anything?”

He frowned.

“On the computer?”

“Oh. No. Nothing of any significance.” But he knew that the moment he was gone she could track exactly where he had been by checking the Recent Items menu. He wondered why it was that he didn’t want to ask her about the emails, or tell her about the locked document. But instinct and experience told him that information shared could be information compromised. “I’ll see you later.”

And as he stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him, he exhaled a deep breath of relief.

Enzo’s laptop sat open on the coffee table, while he squatted on the edge of the settee waiting for the moi. dssr file to transfer from his memory stick to his hard drive. Sophie was curled up beside him, one arm draped idly over his shoulder watching the slow progress of the transfer. It was after eleven, and she had sneaked straight up to his room after the evening service.

“Won’t you be missed?” he had asked her.

“Nah. Everyone’s too tired to bother about socialising at the end of the day. And the only one who’s liable to notice I’m not in my room is Philippe.”

“Who’s Philippe?”

“The sous-chef. I told you!”

“Oh. The boy who’s taken a shine to you?”

“Yes.”

“So how will he know that you’re not in your room?”

“Oh, papa, stop being so suspicious.” She had drawn a deep breath of indignation. “He quite often comes in to listen to music and chat.”

“And that’s all?”

“That’s all.” She had sighed, then. “Anyway, I’ve been playing a bit hard to get lately, so he won’t be surprised if I don’t answer when he knocks on the door.”

Finally the file finished transferring, and he double-clicked on it. A message appeared informing him that he did not possess any software that would open it.

Sophie squinted at the screen. “So what are you going to do?”

“See if I can track down the software and download it.”

She disentangled herself and lifted the computer on to her lap. “What’s it called? I’ll find it for you.”

“It’s called Dossier.”

“No problem.”

He watched as she focused on the screen, eyes wide and fixed on the browser, tapping on the keyboard in search of the software. She was a beautiful young woman. Even tired, and washed out at the end of the day, and without a trace of make-up. She had inherited her mother’s fine, strong features, and her father’s dark hair and Waardenburg streak, though concealed now by the blond rinse. He remembered how, in those first weeks after her mother had died, and she was just a wet, pink, crusty bundle, he had felt such resentment toward her. As if somehow it had been Sophie’s fault that her mother had died giving birth to her. He found it difficult now, to believe that he had harboured such feelings. Of course, they had passed. And he had come to see her as Pascale’s gift to him, a little part of her that would live on in her daughter. And perhaps, too, in Sophie’s children, if she ever had any.

“What?” Sophie’s question startled him. Her eyes had never left the screen.

“What do you mean?”

“I can feel your eyes on me.”

He smiled. She was so much a part of him. “I love you, Sophie.”

Her eyes flickered up from the screen, and he saw them grow moist as she met his. “I love you, too, papa.” And she reached out suddenly and touched his face. He felt her fingers track lightly over his bristles. “Do you ever see Kirsty these days?”

He felt himself tense. “Occasionally. When I’m in Paris.”

“She’s still with Roger?”

He nodded. “You don’t keep in touch with her, then?”

She shrugged. “No point. Since we’re not sisters any more.”

The revelation that his daughter by his first marriage was not his daughter after all, but the fruit of a fleeting affair between his wife and his best friend, had come as a shattering blow to Enzo. Sophie had greeted it almost joyfully. Kirsty was no longer her half-sister. She didn’t have to share her father with anyone anymore.