Peter May: Blowback

“What was the occasion?”

He hesitated. “He was in deep despair. Maybe you were aware of the speculation in the media. That Marc was about to lose a star.”

“Would that have been so bad?”

The man’s smile was wry and sad and filled with disbelief. It conveyed with its simple turn of the lips all the history and sophistication which he possessed, that a country gendarme could never acquire. It verged on the patronising. “It would have been everything. Everything he had dedicated his life to achieve. It would have been shocking, humiliating, devastating.”

Dominique knew that she must appear gauche and guileless to this man, but pressed on. “So why did he invite the media?”

“He said he wanted to make an announcement.”

“Which was?”

The dead man’s brother laid his open palms out before him. “He never made it. We’ll never know.”

Cahors, south-west France, October 2010

He had bearded and washed the scallops, wonderful fat, succulent noix St. Jacques that the fishmonger in the covered market across the street had reserved for him. They purveyed the delicious aroma of the sea without a hint of fish. He had sliced them in half, along the round, with a razor sharp knife to make medallions, then left them to drain on kitchen paper, their milky sweet juices absorbed by the softness.

Now he plated up the salad. A few fresh green leaves. Lettuce, baby spinach, rocket, and a drizzle of thick, sweet dressing made with a syrupy balsamic, carefully gathered in a corner of the plate. He turned back to the stove. His Calphalon nonstick saute pan was smoking hot. Tiny pools of bubbling melted butter and shimmering olive oil ran across its surface as he tipped it one way, then the other, before dropping in the St. Jacques. The sizzling sound of searing scallops filled the room along with their sweet smell. Sixty seconds, and then he flipped them over, pleased with the caramelised crust on the cooked side. Another sixty seconds, and he slipped a thin metal skewer through the side of the fattest of them, deep into its center, before extracting it quickly and raising it to his lips. The merest touch told him that the scallops were warmed to the middle, and therefore cooked. But only just.

Quickly he arranged five medallions in an elegant heap next to the salad on each plate and swivelled toward the table, one in each hand, to deliver them to the two facing place settings. He had already poured tall glasses of chilled, crisp Gaillac blanc sec from Domaine Sarrabelle. Helene looked wide-eyed at the plate in front of her and breathed in deeply. “My God, Enzo, they smell fabulous. You’d have any woman eating out of your hand if you served up food like this every evening.”

Enzo grinned. “Maybe that’s the idea.”

Helene raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Hmmm. If only.”

“But in any case, I’d rather you ate them off the plate than out of my hand, commissaire. And quickly. They won’t keep their heat for long in these temperatures.” No matter how high he had turned up the central heating, the pervasive cold of this early onset winter weather seemed to fill the apartment. Only the heat of the oven and the gas rings seemed to hold it at bay. As he sat down to slice through a scallop and spear a forkful of salad, he glanced from the French windows across the square toward the floodlit twin domes of Cahor’s gothic Saint-Etienne cathedral. The rain slashed diagonally across his line of sight, and he almost imagined he saw an edge of sleet in it. Which would be unprecedented for late October in this ancient Roman city.

“Delicious.”

He turned his head to find Helene beaming at him, as his St. Jacques melted in her mouth. She washed it over with a sip of blanc sec, then dabbed fine, full lips with her napkin.

She was still a handsome woman for all her forty-odd years. Hair normally piled up beneath the hat of her uniform, tumbled in luxuriant elegance across square shoulders. Only the sixth woman in the history of the Republique to be appointed Director of Public Security to one of the country’s one hundred departements, she had never quite seen the joke in Enzo’s refusal to call her by her name. He referred to her always as commissaire, as if it were somehow amusing. She had reflected, more than once, that it might also be a subtle way of his telling her that their on-off relationship was doomed never to progress to intimacy. She popped another St. Jacques in her mouth. “I’m afraid there are still no developments in our attempt to identify who’s been trying to kill you.”

Enzo studied her thoughtfully, distracted by the delicate caramel flavour of the scallops mixing with the sweet, vinegary flavour of the balsamic, and the crisp, slightly bitter tang of the greens. He prepared his palate for the next mouthful with a generous sip of wine and shrugged dismissively. “Well, it’s over a year since the last attempt. So maybe whoever it was is already dead, or behind bars.” But he knew that was unlikely. With four of Roger Raffin’s celebrated cold cases already solved, and only three remaining, someone out there would be increasingly anxious to stop him.

Helene, too, looked less than convinced. But she decided on a change of subject and slipped the last morsel into her mouth before taking a piece of bread to mop up the juices that lingered tantalisingly on her plate. “Where’s Sophie these days?” She glanced around the apartment almost as if expecting to see her suddenly appear.

“Ah,” Enzo said. “I’m glad to say I finally persuaded my daughter to resume her education. I was very disappointed when she dropped out of university to go and work at Betrand’s gymn.”

“Oh?” Helene feigned interest. “What’s she studying?” And she was surprised to detect a hint of evasion in Enzo’s response.

He leaned across the table to take her empty plate and carried the two of them back to the breakfast bar. “Oh, she’s away on a stage. Just a few weeks’ work placement.” He paused. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

And he turned his attention to the main course. A filet mignon de porc which he had marinated in a hoisin, five-spice, and honey sauce, and then roasted in a hot oven. He removed it now from the tinfoil he had wrapped it in before cooking the St. Jacques, and cut it into moist, tender discs which he arranged on a warmed plate. Over the meat he drizzled a reduction of the marinade, then served the cubed, honeyed roast potatoes which had been crisping in the oven on a bed of rosemary.

“ Voila!” He delivered his plates to the table like a magician presenting the denouement of a complex trick. He grabbed a bottle of red and expertly removed the cork. “Some oak-aged syrah to go with it. Enough strength and fruit in it, I think, to stand up to the sweetness of the pork.” He poured them each a glass.

“ Mon dieu, Enzo!” Helene surveyed the plate in front of her, breathing in its aromas. “ Are you trying to seduce me?”

He grinned. “It’s not exactly three-star Michelin quality, commissaire. But anything that can persuade you to slip out of your uniform for the night has to be not bad.”

She smiled demurely, knowing that his flirtation was empty of intent, but enjoying it all the same. Her knife cut through the meat as if it were butter. A little sauce, a cube of honeyed roast potato. She closed her eyes to savour the taste. “You missed your vocation in life.”

Enzo laughed heartily. “It’s just a hobby, commissaire. I’m not at all sure I would have wanted to spend my life slaving seven days a week in a hot kitchen like Marc Fraysse.”

She regarded his smiling face, his dark hair drawn back in its habitual ponytail, greying now, but not enough to hide the silver streak in it. His eyes sparkled with life and amusement, one brown, one blue, and she thought how handsome he was for a man in his fifties. “Is Fraysse the next on your list?”